The Ware for July 2020 was a PocketVNA. Congrats to Jean for nailing it! email me for your prize. I acquired a PocketVNA a little while ago to try and tune some antenna for the Betrusted project. It has some quirks and limitations, but for the price it was a good value for the capabilities it brings.

The Ware for July 2020 is shown below.

This ware is ever so slightly cropped to hide the connectors on the edges, which would make it way too easy to guess.

The Ware for June 2020 is an Elcotel Series 5 payphone. Apparently it was found vandalized in a parking lot, and so a few pictures of its insides were able to find its way to me via Bob Parker (thank you!). I always wondered what was inside these payphones, now I know. Gratz again to jackw01 for nailing it, email me for your prize!

The Ware for June 2020 is shown below.

Thanks to Bob Parker for contributing this ware.

And thanks to everyone who has been submitting guest wares. Since March I literally have not moved outside a circle with a 3-km (2-mi) radius, and there’s currently no end in sight to that trend. I appreciate the interesting diversity of wares being sent my way, please keep them coming!

On that note, if you have a travel bag of gadgets that has been collecting dust for the past few months, don’t forget to check the condition of their batteries; deeply discharged lithium batteries are never a good thing.

The Ware for May 2020 is a Furano AIS Receiver, model FA-30. Gratz to willmore for nailing it! email me for your prize. This board has a very made-in-Japan feel to it. I can’t put my finger on exactly what makes me think that, but there is a certain style to the routing choices, and also the silkscreen color and font is common to PCBs from that corner of the world. I wouldn’t be surprised if a large portion of the PCB designers in Japan could trace their best practices and toolkit defaults back to just one or two large companies.