W4FT on Amateur Radio

Before you take one of your treasures to sell at a hamfest, please unpack the mice!

After last Saturday’s RARSFest, we all went home exhausted and stayed that way all day Sunday.  One of my fellow RARS members shared the following. On Sunday night, he was resting on the couch, still recovering, when he heard a quiet rustling noise.

When he went to his kitchen to investigate, he caught a glimpse of a mouse dashing around the corner.  He put out a plastic humane mouse trap box, and in short order, he caught the culprit, which was released in the field outside. 

Shortly after coming back from that release, he heard the rustling noise again!  And again, he put the mouse trap out and captured another mouse!  No, it wasn’t the same little critter!   So he released this one outside shortly afterwards.

But where did they come from?  Later that evening, after recovering some energy, he started checking out his haul from the hamfest which he had left next to the back door in the kitchen.  This included a mini-rack with a computer backplane and a power supply.  When he dismantled the rack to get the power supply, he found that it had some unexpected contents — mouse droppings!   That was his “a-ha” moment.

Moral of the story – when you take stuff to a hamfest, please be sure to leave the mice at home! 

Isn’t there an old saying that there’s no such thing as “just two mice”? 

73,
W4FT