Sunday, August 21, 2005

Going hi-tech with a radio for the boat


Boat radio
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.
VALOIS, New York - I almost tossed out an old AM-FM radio with a box of stuff destined for the Salvation Army. There's tons of such prized possessions in the house, the collection of a lifetime of my mother-in-law.

But I rescued the radio, when I realized that you don't need an fancy stereo sometimes, just tunes.

And it reminded me that I had a radio quite similar when I was tooling around Lake Chautauqua in my ski boat 40 years ago.

Forty years... Could that be true?

We were at the mercy of the local DJs in those days. Whatever they chose to play (or were paid to play, remember payola?) we listened to, thought was cool and went careening down the lake with the radio turned up as loud as could be.

Our outboard engines were loud and we blew out more than one radio speaker.

I haven't figured out yet how to strap the little radio onto the Hobie Cat for what is likely to be the last sailing adventure of this season. But given that the radio was destined to be given away, we won't be risking all that much if it get a splash of water. A bigger trick will be finding an all-oldies station among the forest of country music that seems to be the most popular around here in the hills of upstate.

I'll bet my new amigos out on the lake two days ago - the May-September couple - could have used just such a radio to smooth their waters.

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