Wisdom of the Ancients

OK, maybe not the ancients, but it has been a lot of fun listening to the old Jean Shepherd clips that Bill from SolderSmoke has been posting on his blog. I guess that I didn’t really get all of the raving that Bill was doing until I listened to one of the shows for myself. Last weekend, I sat down in the shack to do some solder melting and wanted a little ambience to get me in the proper frame of mind. I remembered seeing Bill’s blog posts in Google Reader about the Jean Shepherd clips that he dug up, so I went back in the reader and found the first one. I gotta say, his style and sense of humor holds up very well, once you get past the real hardcore 60’s and 70’s talky-talk. I found myself laughing out loud quite a bit during his monologues. Being a relative baby in ham radio years (this stuff was first on the air before I was born), this was a bit of a surprise. Bill has a new post up in which Shep opines about aliens and building a HB 2 meter rig. I haven’t listened yet, but you can bet that I will very soon.

By the way, does anyone want to fill me in on EXCELSIOR?

2 thoughts on “Wisdom of the Ancients

  1. EXCELSIOR

    Now it is foam, spray in place foam or Styrofoam for most packing material. When I was growing up it was excelsior or vulcanized horsehair. Excelsior with long strands of wood shavings that behaved like pillows of air suspended by wood fibers or shavings to pack around delicate stuff you may want to ship. Folks also used horse hair coated with rubber in large flat sheets which were cut to size to suspend electronics in boxes. In both cases the material was mostly air…

    Best, Chas W7MAP/5

  2. Thanks Chas, I had no idea that’s what that it was, but why is Jean Shepherd saying it? I’m guessing it has something to do with the electronics aspect?

    73 de NT7S

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