Ham Radio Cartoons by Jeff K1NSS

08.31.10 Sorry CTA-102, wrong number! We're reaching out to the farther-distant Mothership of All Modern Lids, Kids, Space Cadets, Geeks, Nerds and sundry other Otaku-oids too scary to bear much scrutiny. Ya sure you betcha, Mr. Roboto, we're talking that easterly Land of the Rising Sun 'N Akihabara Ichiban Electronic Fun A.K.A. Nippon, with our debut issue of radioLaf. Click the logo to your right and enter this ground-breaking SETI Project of an MINeZine, tightly wrapped inside a ham radio webcomic like Fugu sushi prepared by the ghost of a burnt-out ronin who last worked the graveyard shift at an Ukiyo convenience store. Why? Well Dear Reader-San, aside from our insatiable curiousity about electronic folk of many lands, we're attempting to open a new market for our products and do our part to reverse the balance of payments problem, at the very least on the ham radio front. Like, ya know, we see Dash!Books & Goods as the ideal equalizer, a nice way to return the favor of all those lovely & delicious Icoms, Kenwoods, Yaesus, Alincos and Tokyo Hy-Powers that pour across US borders like so many triple banana splits with chocolate sauce, cherries and wasabi peas on top. Yes, it won't happen overnight. Word's got to spread and that's where Dashtoons' elite double secret sophisticated, multi-cultural, high-flying big signal Chum Base can really kick out the jams. Yes, you, Chum-San. Before you disappear next door into radioLafland, please consider. We need you to be our Arecibo, focusing the radioLaf beam and bouncing it by way of whatever amateur and professional backchannels you know best, back down Fujiyama way. Okay, so it's a pipe dream we're smokin, another double dip recession fanasy, like being the next inventor or Monopoly or the Mystery Antenna or something of an equally global viral snowballing sensation.But hey. Like, uh, what if, ya know? What, by the schnozzle-phonic snoot of good ol' Professor Ochanomizu IF..?

08.05.10 We just got word from John WV5J that our books will be featured in an upcoming What's New section of CQ Magazine. Naturally we're delighted and may well put aside an extra copy to be bronzed. Some years back we worked weekends at Ham Radio Outlet in Salem NH and sold a lot of CQs. Sure would have been nice to point out such a coup to our captive audience at the register, but perhaps someone there will remember the Go-to-Guy who made a specialty of ringing-up magazines, PL259s, SO-239s, dogbones and reams of repeater directories, and pause to regale customers with tender tales of times gone by when poor old what's his name was befuddled by the card swiper.

08.01.10 Way,way,way before Jersey Shore's Snooki was kickin' up her adorably ADAWIBLE Seaside Heights fuss, Dash! The Situationally-Untenable Young Pup-Faced Rocker/Ham and his foxy hippy beat primer red MGA-driving, Three-Day Eventing, accomplished boardwalk watercolor caricaturist/Extra Class bird Justine were headed to the very same Shore Point for one more audition at its legendary Chatterbox club, when his old ordinary average Jersey high school ham radio electric guitar buddy Joe (hmmmmm...naw, it couldn't be...could it?) took their summer of '66 to the next level with a chance 75 meter AM mobile QSO and a midnight Cafe Wha? gig they couldn't refuse. If you're new to these parts, click our kickin' LOVE SHACK link for total immersion in this lost chapter from the last days of lower Manhattan's Rockin' Radio Row.