Wednesday, July 27, 2011 — I’m going to write about something other than bugs or other various and sundry Morse code transmitting devices (write down this date!) … my new-to-me (the eBay term for “old and well-used”) PC arrived today.
The seller did not impress with his packing job: A single wrap of large-cell bubble wrap in a box barely large enough for the CPU, much less room for foam peanuts! And this thing arrived via the gorillas of UPS — I feared the worst. The case got a little catty-whompus during transit; I had to take a pair of pliers to straighten out the sheetmetal hinges where the side of the Dell case opens. Other than that, it appears intact; I’m hoping it still works! Cosmetics don’t really matter anyway; the case will be under the operating desk.
I had already received the cables and a mounting arm for the monitor; I mounted it just like the LCD monitor I installed for my FT-2000 DMU. But in trying to mount the monitor, I ran into an issue. The stand on this View Sonic monitor didn’t simply come off so you could attach the bracket (like most normal monitors). This was one of the early LCD monitors (a Christmas gift from my wife, who paid a princely sum for it), and the four mounting holes for bracket mounting are built into the base; the base folds up to the rear of the monitor. It works fine with one problem — the holes are offset about four inches from being in the center of the monitor. Other monitors have the bracket mounts in the center of the monitor; not this View Sonic!
Thus, the monitor’s height was four inches higher or lower than the other one, depending on which way you turned it. Turning it so it sat “low”, it covered up the FT-2000’s external speaker. Turning it the other way put the monitor way higher than comfortable for viewing while trying to type a log entry or operate PSK31. The solution was simple — use the View Sonic monitor for the FT-2000 DMU. I may look at that monitor while tuning the band, but the height makes little difference; you don’t use it that much, not like trying to operate digital modes, etc.
The old Dell LCD monitor I had used for the Yaesu will now be my PC monitor. All I need now is LCD TV monitor and I’ll look like NASA or something …. say, maybe I should look on eBay and see what I can find … hmm…..