What use is an F-call?

As a direct result of being involved in Amateur Radio, I find myself spending more time at my workbench figuring out things, repairing equipment and investigating new solutions. My workbench oscillates between clean enough to eat from, to a place where a cyclone went through in the past hour and all the stages in between.

I realised that there are some contributing factors to this. Amateur Radio, a lot like LEGO, requires lots of little parts, the obligatory bolts and nuts, washers and the like, connectors and adapters, fuses and wire. Then there are a growing number of resistors, capacitors and other odds and ends. The projects waiting to be done and the failed ones.

I started hunting for storage for all these little bits. I investigated little electronics drawers, but found them prohibitively expensive if you wanted to obtain enough to make a difference. If they were cheap, they were very thin and if they were nice and robust, they came in at a couple of bucks per drawer, which adds up to real money pretty rapidly.

I experimented with toolboxes and all manner of different storage bins and then came across a fishing tackle box. Not the toolbox type, just a simple flat semi-transparent box with lots of little compartments. The one I found has about 24 little sections, and the walls are removable, so you can fit a large lure, uh, bolt in them.

In my travels through various different clubs and shacks, I've seen a myriad of other solutions too.

What do you use to store your precious?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB