Sometimes things happen that one needs to share.
The Stew Perry. I had known Stew and felt that I had to join in. I have no
antenna for any band below 20m and haven't been on 160 for perhaps 20 years.
I've made exactly one cw qso in the past several years. Rig is a TS-850s.
Antennas are a tri-bander and a ringo ranger. It was midnight. What to do?
Using the principle that the best receiving antenna may be good at
transmitting, I tried various combinations of my two antennas, and found
that connecting the braid of the ringo ranger coax to the 850s antenna
terminal heard best. What a surprise--the rr was not on the tower, but on a
chimney mount--just 20 feet off the ground, and lots of the coax was just
lying about on the flat tin roof. Now, would it load? Bless this built-in
tuner--it matched and I was off and running at 0518Z on December 29.
W3CP was CQ. I wiped the dust from the Bencher and dropped my call--and he
came back! Next was VE3OSZ, and 34 more QSO's before I almost fell asleep
at the key a couple of hours later.
Grid squares are a great idea. From my QTH in FN42, I worked into EN52 on
the west, EM83 to the southwest and FN25 to the northwest.
I heard some dx. ON4UN was up and down. It was great to hear John who's
shack I visited over 20 years ago. Now here is GM3POI--and loud. I dropped
my call--and he came back! Wow!
My enjoyment was a testimony to the great ears that are a common denominator
among the successful top-banders. Thank you for listening. I promise to be
back for Stew Perry '97 with an antenna. 73 and happy new year.
Dennis, W1UF
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