Surfin': Tackling Stacking

I do not have a fear of heights. In fact, I love the view from heights like the view from the top of buildings and mountains and airplanes, but I do have a fear of falling from heights.

A ladder collapsed under me once; I fell about five feet and broke two ribs. I don't want to think about falling from higher heights and that's why I don't like working on my 55-foot tower much. It telescopes down to about 20 feet, but that is still something to be wary of, so I pray for a future son-in-law who owns a bucket truck.

KB2HZI  doesn't need no stinkin' bucket truck. Lori Higgins builds Yagis and stacks them on the two towers at her contest station in New York's Catskill Mountains. The photo above is the view from the top of one of Lori's towers and this set of photos shows her working on the stack of her 60-foot tower without chipping a nail!

According to Ray Higgins, W2RE, who alerted me about Lori, "Not only does she do tower work, she runs marathons, bike rides 100 miles a week. Her full-time employment is a nurse. She works part-time for RemoteHamRadio.com. She also operates at multi-ops during ARRLDX and CQWW.

Until next time, keep on surfin'!

WNAX

 

WNAX (570 AM) is a radio station broadcasting a News/Talk format. It is licensed to Yankton, South Dakota. Due to the flat landscape of the Upper Great Plains with near-perfect ground conductivity and its location near the bottom end of the AM band, the station's 5,000-watt signal covers large portions of South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri and North Dakota. Besides Sioux Falls (its "home" market) and Sioux City, it can be heard clearly in Omaha, Lincoln and Des Moines. Under the right conditions, it can be heard as far south as Kansas City and as far north as Fargo. It has the second largest daytime land coverage area of any US based radio station, after KFYR in Bismarck, North Dakota. (Source: Wikipedia)

What the Tower Beared

I worked on the log periodic antenna and got it back into shape physically, but due to the rainy weekend, I could not test it electronically until today. I tested it on 2 meters and the SWR was great across the whole band.

I was very surprised. I thought that that antenna was a goner, but now it is a keeper.

I also checked out the rotor today. It worked, but very noisily.

I lubricated it and that quieted it a lot. All it needs now is new clamps and hardware.

Remembering Irene

There were no visits from Murphy this weekend despite a visit from hurricane Irene, which was downgraded to "tropical storm" status by the time it got here.

The rain was heavy and we totaled 3.76 inches over the weekend, not much when compared to other areas of the state which were pushing two digit totals.

The wind was constant with speeds reaching as high as 43 MPH Sunday morning and it was still blowing steadily when I went to bed Sunday night, but it did not do much damage. The yard was full of leaves, twigs, and branches, including one huge 20-foot branch that I had to subdivide before I could haul it away.

The guyed 55-foot tower was steady as a rock throughout the storm. I was a little concerned that the ground was so saturated that one of the guy anchors might come loose, but it never happened.

And I saved the best for last: we never lost power.

A Bear Sits In My Yard

In the early spring, evidence (a mangled suet holder and a pulled-down bird feeder) indicated that a bear had dined in my yard.

As I was getting ready to take a shower yesterday morning, Pumpkin Pie started barking while peering out the bedroom window that overlooks the bird feeder. I went to the window to see what was the matter and sitting on the ground in between my antenna tower and the bird feeder was a black bear.

He had already mangled and eaten the contents of the suet feeder, but the bird feeder is of the heavy metal variety, so he could not mangle it and had to snatch sunflower seeds out of the feeder with his tongue.

The bear had tags on his ears that indicated he was Number 49, who has been seen all over town this spring and summer. The local newspaper had an article about him just last week, which claimed he weighed about 200 pounds (he looked bigger than that to me).

He did not seem at all bothered by me or my family watching him for over 20 minutes. I stood about six feet away from him shooting photos and videos through the family room window and he could care less.

After he finished off all the sunflower seeds, he drank water out of the bird bath and ambled off into the woods heading in a northeasterly direction.

Surfin': Radio-Spotting Through the Windshield

On the road, this week's Surfin' views the world of radio through the windshield.

WA1BXI

I read in the obituaries today that John Karezna, WA1BXI, died.

John was the first person to answer a voice CQ from me.

After I passed my Technician Class license, I bought a used Heathkit Twoer and put it on the air on 2-meters AM in April 1971. John came back to my first ever voice CQ and we became fast friends, chatting away for hours on the old Connecticut Mobileers channel (145.35 MHz).

John worked with my grandfather, Andrzej Gogolewski, at Chase Metal Works in Waterbury and being into metal, he built a tilt-over tower from scratch. The tower was about 75-feet tall and I drove over to John's house in Wolcott to see it was duly impressed.

I eventually moved to 2-meter FM leaving John on 2-meter AM, thus ending our long chats. I occasionally ran into John on the air during VHF contests, but during contests, there was no time for long chats and our friendship waned.

Anyway, 73, my old friend and thank you for answering my "CQ."

Surfin': Revisiting "Where's DX?" and "Antennas in High Places"

The follow-up e-mails that Surfin' generates often expand on the topics that Surfin' originally covered. This week, Surfin' reviews the topic-expanding e-mails received during the past few weeks.

Surfin': Antennas in High Places

This week, Surfin' explores the Internet looking for the highest radio antennas on Earth.