TO: ALL WOOD COUNTY EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS AMATEURS
ALL NON-WOOD COUNTY EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS AMATEURS
FROM: KEN HARRIS WA8LLM
WOOD COUNTY EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS INCORPORATED
WOOD COUNTY BULLETIN NR 14.13 DATE: March 30, 2014
SUBJECT: USABLE PARTS FROM OLD EQUIPMENT
What do some businesses do with their old "out-of-date" equipment? Most of them just place it in their dumpsters to be taken to a local landfill. Is this equipment no longer any good? As an Amateur Radio hobbyist the old equipment may still be of use. If not put back into some kind of service, maybe it can be taken apart and use some of the materials inside.
Have you even taken a piece of electronic equipment apart just to see what's inside? If you are an electronic hobbyist, I'm sure the answer is, yes. If you are just getting into the electronic or communications hobby, you might want to take the old, non-usable, equipment apart and see what you kind find.
There's a gold mine of part and material that may be used to build projects, or repair another piece of broken equipment. Not every piece or part inside can be used, or reused, but there is a lot of things that may be useable over time. Depending on what kind of electronic equipment you are taking apart, you might find copper wire that can be used to wind coils, or used as hook-up wire. There may be speakers or microphones.
Speaking of a gold mine of parts, you may also find gold. I've been told that some parts of electronic equipment are made with gold. If there is any gold in them, it won't be very much. If there are parts made with gold, it would take a lot of them to make it worth your time.
Other parts that you might find are components such as resistors, both fixed and variable, capacitors, both fixed and variable, diodes, voltage regulators, switches, transistors, and light emitting diodes. So the next time you hear of a piece of electronic equipment being disposed of, or trashed, think about what parts you might find and be able to use.
Ken Harris WA8LLM
WCEC
Wood County WV