During the school bus epoch, wandering the US with Maggie, we stayed for a few days with K0PP, a ham-radio friend in Anaconda, Montana. This is one of the two newspaper articles about that event (the other is here), and there is a tale in the “Miles with Maggie” series about exploits on the HF…

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by Steven K. Roberts Somewhere in North Dakota August 25, 1988 It has been a time of long roads through cornfields, of unexpected happiness in small-town America, of music, sickness, dreams, ham radio, and still nights so hot that there’s relief in the tiny breezes of mosquito wings during final approach. Between New Orleans and…

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Larsen was my favorite antenna vendor, and I was in regular contact with my connection at the Vancouver Washington company throughout the Winnebiko II and BEHEMOTH projects. I even dropped by for a visit, giving a presentation for employees and interviewing with the local paper. This piece is in a Larsen house organ, and was published…

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Winnebiko II computerized recumbent bicycle console

This was a huge and significant addition to the Winnebiko II near the end of its epoch, and it became very well-integrated into BEHEMOTH… one of those amazing new cellular phones that were rocking the industry. Mine was donated by Oki Telecom, and this is their announcement to company employees. But it went much farther,…

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I spent a few days at the brutally hot 1988 EAA Convention (Experimental Aircraft Association) in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. People fly from all over the world to be part of this, and the scale was stunning. Naturally, my bike was a bit of an oddity there, even though there was enough technological overlap to turn a…

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Part 7 in the High-Tech Nomad series by Steven K. Roberts N4RVE 73 Magazine August, 1988 When I first set out on my strange 8-foot-long, 140-pound bicycle back in 1983, I received a lot of serious advice from my Ohio neighbors. “Never turn onto a road with ‘mount’ or ‘hill’ in its name,” said one seasoned…

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This beautiful cycling magazine was published by Warren Salomon in Australia from 1977 to 1989, and covers a huge range of history. In the July/August 1988 issue, he reviewed my Computing Across America book just after it came out, then graciously gave me the space to describe the Winnebiko II in detail. For decades I…

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Above: the Rebirth jazz band in 1984 (photo by Steven K. Roberts) NOTE: We were in New Orleans July 9-12, 1988, exhibiting the bike and signing copies of Computing Across America at the 107th annual conference of the American Library Association. This little impressionistic story is not about that event, however, but about what happened…

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A visit with MFJ in Starkville, Mississippi to pick up a couple of antenna-system accessories for the upcoming BEHEMOTH led to this story in the local paper… by Elise Crow Starkville Daily News July 8, 1988 When Steven K. Roberts got fed up with his $2,500-a-month lifestyle as a consultant in Columbus, Ohio, he decided to…

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From a visit with MFJ in Starkville, Mississippi… with more details available in the Daily News.  photos by Russ Houston Starkville Commercial Dispatch July 8, 1988 STARKVILLE — It’s been a long haul for Ohio resident Steven Roberts — some 16,000 miles, in fact — but he doesn’t mind as he continues his odyssey across America…

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