Re: *** New Members: Please Introduce Yourselves Here!
Hello fellow RPF members,
My name is Karl Sack and I live in Bradford, Ontario, Canada. Just 1hr north of Toronto. I have been married for 25 years next June and have 2 wonderful boys. Sean 17 and Luke 15. I am a Software Engineer by trade. I enjoy amateur radio, electronics, wood carving on my off hours.
What brought me to this wonderful forum is the SyFy show Warehouse 13. I immediately was taken in by the Farnsworth Communicator. I Googled "farnsworth communicator" and the rest is history. After reading the posts, I have started building one (actually two) and plan on making it work as a real communication device. Just from reading thru this forum, I know I will learn a great deal from everyone.
My brother-in-law, who lives in my basement, has taken over my garage with his resin model building hobby. I figured if I can't beat him, join him!! Now the WHOLE garage is OUR workshop. Do a search on ebay for "markarnoldca" and you'll find his H.P.Lovecraft work.
I have always been interested in things mechanical and electrical from a very young age. My father was an engineer and so I grew up in his workshop. I later went to Carleton University for Engineering and then transferred to Brock University to complete my Computer Science degree. I would like to share with you some of my precious “engineering” moments growing up.
***
I remember as a young boy of 5, sitting quietly next to my father as he was drafting away. I sat there in such amazement as he would use his sliderule to calculate numbers. That’s the same slide rule I have in a box with other memorabilia of my Dad's, such as a lapel pin given to him by the CEO of General Dynamics for assisting them with the design of their Stinger Rocket launcher.
When my Dad would work on weekends, I would go to “the shop” and help him make blueprints. To this day, the smell of ammonia brings back fond childhood memories. The shop was a magical place with a chem lab, a never ending supply of resin and fibre glass; overhead cranes on pulleys, machine shops with drill presses, lathes, sanders, etc., - all in one huge building!
***
I had a quick lesson at the age of 7 on how to read schematics, when I took all the tubes out of my Dad’s stereo one day. It was a miracle that I was not electrocuted before the age of 10. On the back of the stereo was a service panel which had a nice big red sign on it saying “Danger High Voltage”. I was only going to peek inside; really I was but the glow of the tubes intrigued me. I unplugged the power (at least I knew that much) and watched them go dark. I began to pull out the warm tubes one by one until they were all out. One thing I must say about my father was that he never got mad about me exploring new things. He came in the room, saw the tubes on the floor and kneeled down, picked up one of the tubes and showed me where it was from (in the schematics and on the chassis) and placed it back in. “Now, you do the rest!” he said. And I did as he watched. He took out the vacuum, cleaned up all the remaining dust bunnies and helped me put back the panel - pointing out the danger sign!
I don’t know whether it was my imagination or not but I thought the stereo sounded better some how, after that. The next day, my Dad brought home a box full of Sylvania tubes from work and a tube tester and asked me to test them all. There must have been at least 200 in the box and I had fun testing them all and found 8 duds!
***
As a young kid in high school, My firend and I built a Star Wars Storm Trooper costume out of vacuum formed plastic. We made the forms and I got several sheets of polyethylene from where I worked in the summer. It came with walkie-talkie in the headset and a red "laser" light shooting out the barrel of our rifle. I say "laser" here because laser pointers were not as free coming back then as they are now but it was smoky enough in the bars and looked really cool! We ended up winning first prize!
***
Later on when I worked as a Radar Technician, in the army, I found out that my Dad’s company was responsible for making the fibre glass radomes which went over the radar antennas to protect the gear from the elements. I remember my Dad bringing home black and white pictures of the installation tests up in the DEW line and noticed the antennas were the exact same Height Finder antennas that I worked on. What a small world. The tubes in the radar equipment always reminded me of my adventure with my Dad’s stereo. During the mid 1980’s, a lot of the radar stations were shutting down and there was going to be an influx of radar techs. So, in 1985 I; was honourably discharged from the army, got married, and started university all within a 4 month span. Talk about stress that year!
***
Feel free to email me anytime.
Cheers,
Karl
:thumbsup
