I love shopping at Home Depot for ham radio stuff. It always has all kinds of merchandise that can be adapted to make antennas and masts and supports and connectors. Except for the coaxial cable, every part of the wire antenna on top of my house came from Home Depot. So when I needed some wire to connect to the battery and power the radios and other goodies I want to install, Home Depot was my first stop. I was looking for two lengths of 10 gauge stranded wire, one black and one red, maybe 20 feet of each. The only thing I could find was a roll of about 150 feet of each for about $50 or so, much more than I needed or wanted to spend. At the end of the aisle there was the "wire by the foot" setup with several choices, none of which was 10 guage stranded wire. I turned around and saw a shelf full of miscellaneous lengths of wire, and a sign "see associate for pricing of misc. wire." There was a length of stranded 10 guage wire that looked like it might be long enough, so I grabbed it and found an employee who was kind enough to measure it.
He measured it at 47 feet, then wrote up a sales slip using the "SKU" number that was shown on a scrap of paper taped to the wire roll. I took wire and paper to the cashier, who couldn't get the computer to come up with the number that was written on the paper. She called someone on the phone for help, and after about 30 seconds the call was interrupted and she had to dial again. I started thinking "oh great, this is going to be another fun experience" as her phone cut out for the second time. After she called the number the third time, the person on the other end gave her a completely different number. It worked out to be 10 guage stranded wire on the computer screen, and it was about $25.00, so it was all good.
When I got home, I took off the fanny pack I always wear when I leave the house, and trapped between me and the fanny pack was a Home Depot price sticker:
I brought it downstairs and checked the receipt, and that's the same SKU number listed on the receipt. It's not shown on the Home Depot website, but it's in their computer system. The mystery of the day is where did the tag come from? I didn't see anything flutter down in front of my face when I was getting my roll of wire disentangled from the rest of the remnants. It's strange, and maybe a little creepy, but I guess it doesn't matter now.
The next task will be to find a way to get the wire safely through the firewall into the passenger compartment, and to distribute 12 volts DC to the radios and other electronic gadgets, using a green wire for the positive side and another green wire for the negative side. The adventure continues.
May 15, 2011