At the Ballston Spa Swapfest, I was fortunate to win one of the door prizes. In my case, it was a $50 gift certificate with the ARRL. It is not always obvious to people that the gift certificate cannot be applied to ARRL memberships. Kinda strange, actually, but I did know that. What I didn’t know was that you cannot use the certificate for online purchases with the ARRL online store.
Silly me. It did try, and it did fail. Apparently you must call (as in telephone) to make the purchase. Oh well. Now I know.
Well, I decided to purchase the end-feed half-wave antenna kit. It is actually a well-rated product, and with an automatic $50 discount (plus free shipping ’cause of the certificate–Bonus!!), I happily ordered it.
The very nice person at the league who took my order wanted to prepare me for a two-week delivery time. A few days handling by the league, and another 10 ways in the hands of the postal service. (Seems like I could have walked to the ARRL headquarters in that time, but ok.) Turns out, it did take the league a couple of days (plus a weekend) to actually ship the item, but the USPS performed brilliantly. Initially reports from the USPS said I should expect it Saturday (8 days after the order was placed), but it almost immediately updated the estimate to Thursday, two days faster.
Individual experiences vary a lot, but I, for one, am very happy with my postal delivery.
At any rate, I opened the box to peek inside. Now it is just a matter of finally deciding when to put it together.
So many projects, so little time. I will provide updates as they develop….