Indoor Fun on Rainy Days

Winter weather returned with nearly three inches of rain, near freezing temperatures and strong northerly winds, so again I had to focus on things I could do inside the house.


I ordered a new $20 multimeter to replace the $10 multimeter I bought about thirty years ago, and it arrived yesterday. The old one still worked fine but it didn’t beep. Since all my continuity testing will be a one-man operation, I figured it would be worth twenty bucks to save a lot of time and effort when crawling around looking for wire terminations and just listen for the beep and not have to watch the meter face. I braved the cold for a short time and did accomplish a quick power isolation test. I didn’t find any shorts, so I can get busy continuity testing the circuits when warmer weather arrives tomorrow.

One of my indoor jobs was investigating an idea I had to make radio antennas to mount atop the tailfins in the stock factory location. The OEM parts I found online were priced from $150 for a set of well-worn parts, to $500 for a NOS set, and I cringed thinking about spending that much for something functionally unimportant. That said, I always liked the look of dual rear antennas and dual rearview mirrors on the fenders, so I’m looking for less expensive options.


My idea was to design a custom-shaped base to adapt a flat mounting, generic antenna to the narrow fin top. I had already purchased one stainless steel antenna that looked like a good candidate to modify, so I carved a base from a piece of heavy wall vinyl tubing to see if it could be made to look okay on a daily driver. I was pleased enough with the results to order a 12” piece of 1-1/4” diameter machinable black ABS rod from MSC Direct. It showed up today and I spent the morning laying out the dimensions on the raw material. Now it would be nice to own a mill as it’s going to take forever to cut and shape everything with hand tools. If I’m successful, I will have about fifty dollars invested in parts and material, but I won’t even attempt a guess at how many hours the job will take.