>>>>> On Sun, 12 Jul 2009 09:25:10 -0500, Rick W <mrf...@frontiernet.net> said:
> As was mentioned, construction may be impractical for many hams. In my > case, I have been soldering since around age 13 or so with my first > crystal radio kit and later many kits and dozens of projects over the > years, so it is not too difficult to make a simple interface. > Today, because of my age, it is increasingly difficult to do close work > without special help. I normally wear trifocals and the close-in > distance is for book reading at around a foot, but it is very much at > the bottom of the glasses and difficult to use so I sometimes use > magnifying googles. There must be a lot of cheap second hand camcorders out there, many with both analogue and digital video outputs and plenty of optical zoom. I imagine you could easily display a good 10-20x image of the work on your monitor (perhaps with the aid of an external lens). That's a lot of magnification and as a bonus you can sit straight and not spend hours hunched over your desk looking at the work with magnifying goggles on. You also inhale less flux fumes and avoid solder splashes. -- 73, Stelios, M0GLD.
