Email me here (remove the spaces). Check out my Flickr photos or my Youtube videos
About Gabe Emerson:
I’m currently living in St. Paul MN. I went to grad school at the University of Minnesota and have a Masters of Computer Science. I got my BS in Computer Science from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. I’m interested in Geographic Information Systems, computer security, digital forensics, and related fields.
I grew up in a small bush community in Southeast Alaska, where my family fished commercially. Both my sister and I were homeschooled until 8th Grade. My hometown, Funter Bay, is about 20 miles from Juneau. A mining and cannery ghost town, it was home to about 10 year-round residents during my childhood, with the population increasing in the summer.
My interests include climbing, hiking, piracy, caving, electronics and amatuer radio, and industrial archeology. I’m some kind of redneck hippie and love saving or fixing useful things that others would throw out, hence the name of this site (see more details below).
About the Website:
Why is it called “saveitforparts” you ask? Well apparently when I was quite young I had a habit of saving all my broken toys, and on several occasions when my mom would try to throw something out I would yell “No no! save it for parts!” This behavior probably had its roots in the Alaskan attitude of never throwing away anything potentially useful.
Even today I hate to throw anything away, and often find that I suddenly have a use or need for something that I just pitched. I also salvage spare parts from electronics whenever possible, even if I have no idea what the parts are. If it looks like something I can use later, I’ll take it out before throwing away that stereo or TV (so I have boxes and boxes of little motors and colored wire). In other words, I’m a total packrat. This comes in handy for projects like my halloween props.
Saveitforparts 
We will continue that tradition while care taking your your old homestead. Roy Mielke….
Hello Gabe I am a big fan of yours, I was wanting to convers with you but I don’t use Facebook. Is there another way ?I want your take on cellular communications. Thank you
Howdy, you can email me gabe (at) saveitforparts.com, that usually works the best!
Just stumbled upon your digital world. Way cool Gabe.
I really enjoyed reading through your site — awesome pictures and history. Thank you. And Thanks to Brian Weed for sending me the link.
Hi Gabe! I just found your website. Awesome. I am going to be student teaching this upoming year at Mt. Edgecumbe. I am currently in Juneau doing the MAT program. We are designing curriculum for Social Studies. Is it ok with you if I have students look at your website and email you and/or comment?
Sure, feel free to have them look and contact me if they have questions. I’m glad you like the site!
[…] the monorail was removed from the zoo, one train was sold to Gabe Emerson who has a blog called Saveitforparts. He has a lot of information about the monorail there as well, […]
Hi–I was doing some research on my grandpa, Eugene “Beaner” Walby and found him in a few of your photos (he’s the tall one with cleft chin). We have a scrapbook at home that he made of his travels to Montana and Alaska (and Japan in 1922) to play baseball during the summers while attending UW. I’ll return to spend more time on this site. Thank you!
I grew up in Haines, Alaska, but now live in Walker Lake, Nevada. I got to see the little engine “Seward” in operation a few years ago at the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City. Your website is AWESOME!
Gabe – my friend Jane Pettit sold you some memorabia from the Zoo Monorail. She told me to check out your website and watch the video of moving it.! I was the Monorail Tour Supervisor for 6 years and it is bittersweet knowing the trains are gone – but I’m glad you got one. I have a large panel from the Mononrail station – one of the original paintings and wonder whether you’d’ be in the market for this. It has been in our barn for 33 years – protected from the weather. It has an image of a Siberian Tiger on it . If you’d like I could send you a photo. I tried to send you an email from the note up above but it didn’t work. Hope you get this. Kate Crowley
Hi, we’d like to contact your Dad about getting one or two Magnum Hummingbird Feeder. We live in Mariposa, and we had bought one at Creekside Nursery, but now they don’t have them. Could we get your Dad’s contact info? Thanks, Ralph
I’ll forward your message to him, I see your email in the notification so I’ll send him that!
I love your channel! What is up with the Jet Boat??? Summer is fading fast!!
I got tied up with a bunch of other projects, and I’m still trying to find all the parts to rebuild the drive. Also last time I took the tarps off it was full of raccoon, so now I have to clean the interior!
Thanks for getting back with me! If you need help sourcing parts, please reach out! Keep up the good fight!
Howdy! What’s up with the Jet Boat??? Summer is fading fast!!!
I am a fan and I remember tuggy the boat that you built and i was wondering if you would sell it for the right price. I live in brainerd MN and I have been looking for a tugboat sandbox but they’re too far and I wanted to make a boat out of one but I don’t want to got across the state. Please reply
so how much do you think you would sell it for?
I am a fan and I remember tuggy the boat that you built and i was wondering if you would sell it for the right price. I live in brainerd MN and I have been looking for a tugboat sandbox but they’re too far and I wanted to make a boat out of one but I don’t want to got across the state.
hey how are you — am looking for a way to start a tv station to broadcast my own tv via wifi
I’m not sure how that would work, I’ve never tried broadcasting TV. I’ve done a few experiments with long-range wifi, it helps if both ends have a directional antenna they can aim at eachother.
Hey Gabe, I recently found your Youtube channel and have watched just about all your videos. They are very enjoyable. We are birds of a feather. I have always been a tinkerer and it turned into a career in electronics. I am retired now and don’t tinker much any more, but I sure enjoy watching you do it. When I was a kid I would dumpster dive and make stuff from found stuff. There was a cable TV office near my home and I think I liked their dumpster the best. I’m a ham too but I let my license lapse. My favorite thing anymore is finding VHF radio pirates, most of which are cops! They are a lot of fun to listen to as they apparently think no one knows they are there (I live in a major metropolitan city a couple of states south of you). I tried RTL-SDR, for VHF, but it’s not nearly sensitive enough. I have an old Radio Shack PRO-2006 with an aftermarket RS-232 port that allows me to control it with a computer. Super awesome. This message turned out much longer than I anticipated. Long story short, I really enjoy your channel and hope you keep doing it for a long time. Thanks, Tom.
Hi Tom, thanks for the message! That sounds like fun, I haven’t listened to local pirates for a while, although I used to have my scanner on all the time checking out various stuff.
Hey Gabe, I absolutely love your youtube channel. I am somewhat of a packrat too. I am fascinated by the amount of spare electronics and RF things you’re able to find.
I just stumbled upon this blog and I love the look of the website. Can you tell the names of the themes and plugin that you have used here?
The theme is called “Contempt” (weird I know, but I think it looks good!). I don’t have too many plugins other than the usual security / antispam stuff.
Love your channel, my son turned me onto it. Your content about radio stuffs has fascinated my son for months. We are attempting a Satellite Communication thing as per the video where you grab images from NOAA and GOES satellites. Hit a small snafu, emailed you a couple questions, but maybe someone else can be helped with that question being answered here?
I salvaged a directv/dishtv type dish that is oblong and the radio is on the edge of the unit instead of in the middle…and I cannot figure out how to aim it. There are many degrees from what I think is center to where the eye/ant would be…lots of play.
Have you or anyone here used such a dish successfully?
Thanks.
Just saw this, and replied to your email!
Is your email still active? I’d like to contact you.
Yep! Gmail throws some stuff in spam, but I try to check there too
I know some time ago you did a Multi telescope project Some time ago.
I was.Looking for some extra parts for the criterion telescope. Any chance of picking some up.
mark
I’m still using the Criterion scope occasionally, although I took apart the weird tripod base and used it for something else.
Hello Gabe, I have an interesting project for you! My father recently passed away, and left me a 30 foot gimballed satellite dish, dismantled on his property in Indiana. I’ve been trying to find someone or some way to preserve it, and a bunch of people have pointed me your way. If you’re at all interested, please feel free to reach out.
Thanks, and I’m a big fan of your work!
Hi Ben, people have been forwarding me your Facebook listing all day! I guess everyone immediately thinks of me when it comes to giant antennas! I see your email here so I’ll send you a message, but I’m a few states away and can’t promise anything!
Hi Gabe, Mike Wyatt here. I’m in Alabama and have been doing Youtube videos for about 2 1/2 years now. I subscribed to your channel a good while back but don’t know the exact date. I love your videos although most of the stuff is way above my head. I see that you have been pretty serious about YouTube for at least 8 years and have videos posted earlier than that. My question is was there a point in time that you really began to see your channel really take off? I’m right at 2k subs even after the 2 1/2 years. Sometimes it’s a little discouraging. I have been earning money each month since april of this year which is good but it seems that YouTube has the ability to make or break you. I would really appreciate your thoughts and feedback. I’m a ham also (but not very active) KB4RYK.
It’s fairly random, and at the whim of the mysterious Youtube algorithm! I sometimes see a certain topic or video take off, but it seems to have nothing to do with how much effort I put in, or how good I think the video is. The satellite stuff got really popular last year and has stayed somewhat popular, but the income is never consistent or reliable and I definitely can’t quit my day job yet!
I am a fan of your content and want to say that I appreciate how authentic it is, there’s nothing fabricated at all. If you ever want to hang out and shoot the breeze, that’d be cool. I’m just over in Hugo, always got some project going on.
hey gade I’m 14 and trying to get in to the radio Hobby and saving up the money for the discovery dish is there any satellites of interest that I should look at and I just wanted to say hey and btw I love the video and one more thing are there any programs that I should use for the discovery dish
It’s a fun hobby! If you can’t afford the Discovery dish you can always try to make something from spare parts! I use the SatDump program quite a bit. There’s also a new Windows program called SkyRoof that I’ve heard about but haven’t tried yet. Hope that helps!
ok thanks so much I’ll try satdump btw congratulations on 300,000
I got a box of antenna couplers and adapters that hook one kind of plug to a different one. There are a lot of them. It would probably make a nice video if you explained what each one does and what it hooks too. I only needed a couple of them. I tried another YouTube guy who never responded. I will mail all of them to you. With all the radio stuff you do I am sure you could use them. I got them at a free garage sale. Everything was free. They are in a four drawer tackle box where the top if storage too. I wont mail them in this it does not lock and if it tips over everything is on the floor. So are you interested? and do you have a P.O. Box address? You of course would not pay anything I will pick up the shipping. I have seen some of them for sale on eBay for quite a bit of money. I would rather use them to educate viewers. If you would like a picture of what I am talking about I supplied my email.
How did you create this website? I like little blogs like this and wanted to know how to create my own.
I used WordPress, it’s pretty straightforward and there are some free options (usually with ads).