Hello from the Virginia Tidewater

Hello everyone. I'm a new member and just registered after stopping in here off and on for awhile now. I don't typically join things, but have been impressed by the content and decorum this forum offers and hope by occasionally participating I can make some small and useful contribution to the group.

I have many interests (too many, my SO would say) which clash for my time and discretionary funds, but music -- creating it, recording it, recreating it -- has been a consistent passion of mine since building with the help of my Dad a crystal radio set way back in 1966 when I was 8 years old. Three years later I built my first tube amp after finding a yellowed, crumbling, and wet Radiotron Designer's Handbook in a ditch beside the road alongside my paper route. That it worked on first power up amazed me; that I didn't electrocute myself amazed my mother. I've been building, repairing, and restoring audio gear off and on since, supplementing my efforts with entry to mid-level high-end pieces from time to time, if for no other reason than to recalibrate my ears, audio prejudices, and expectations.

So, enough intro. Thanks for this forum ... I look forward to participating.

Best to all,

James (Fogdog)

Thanks all for the kind welcome. Tom and Bruce -- small world, I guess. I escaped from the DC area two years ago and now live just south of Deltaville, near Gwynn's Island. I was up in Kilmarnock and Irvington just yesterday. Ron, I flirted with amateur radio while a teenager. At the time, reasonable fluency in Morse Code was a requirement for a novice license, but I struggled to get my coding up to par. I settled for late-night listening to short-wave on an old Heathkit.

I like your avatar, Bruce. I have a '14 Kleemann C300 Sport -- as close to a C63 507 Edition my wife would let me get . I'm still scheming to acquire the C63, but am recently distracted by an older Italian ...

Best,

James