Packages

I arrived home today to be greeted by packages.  These are always fun moments and in particular, given what I am awaiting, this got pretty exciting.  Arrived today was my SSB (the ICOM M802 + AT140 auto tuner) and my sextant.  The radio gear was unpacked and looked at.  Actual contact must await the weekend.  I know I don’t have all the bits yet but now I have some of the gear I can cast my mind to how / where I’m going to set it up.  I haven’t yet thought about an antenna.  This will need some research / preparation.  Now, perhaps, is the time to draw on my recently acquired HAM knowledge.  The sextant was more readily playable.  The one I have ordered is the Astra IIIb.  Midrange pricewise which is usually where I find price/performance to work out the best.  I only had to screw in the eyepiece.  I was able to determine the index error as measured using the top of my laptop as an artificial horizon.  This will give me an obvious error in my error assessment due to near distance parallax.  (Am I showing off cos I read a little theory recently?)  I then measured the altitude of a light relative to my laptop then got bored.  Now I need to find some more realistic practice scenarios.