Hello all,
This is my first post to Photonlexicon so I’ll start with a little introduction. My name is Chris and I live in small town central Alberta, Canada. I’m 35 years old, I’m married to a wonderful girl and I have one beautiful daughter with another baby on the way. For the past 13 years I have worked my way up the ranks at a small oilfield production testing company. You could say I put on BIG pyrotechnic shows out in the middle of the prairies.
Up until fairly recently I was a very active member in a local modern/classic rock band. I took care of all the band’s lighting and still have most of the equipment down in the basement. Strangely, this wasn’t what got me interested in lasers in the first place. Another hobby of mine is astronomy and on a whim I bought a “cheap chinese” green pointer to mount as a finder on my telescope. When it arrived I was amazed at the beam you got for the buck! The Chauvet , American DJ and ebay dot on the wall stuff has never really impressed me much but this pointer got me thinking.
Since then I’ve done some reading here and on other forums such as LPF and have extended my technical knowledge of lasers somewhat. I’ve also extended my laser collection a bit picking up a few more handhelds in different wavelengths. While handhelds are great for fun their purpose, a scanner really appeals to me. Unfortunately it seems that buying or building a quality scanner would still be a little out of my price range. I have been kicking around the idea of buying a “cheap chinese” scanner as an entry level platform so I can upgrade as wanted / needed. I may have found one that is well suited for my needs but I think I’ll leave its details and questions for another thread.
I do have a couple questions for this thread though. Is there any kind of LEM event in the Western Canada, Alberta area? I think this is something I'd really enjoy seeing. Are there any members here from central Alberta? Also I've yet to find exactly what regulations apply in Canada regarding class 4 laser projectors. If anyone can point me in the right direction that would be great.
Cheers,
Plan