[RFI] nightmare neighbors

[Ford Peterson]

I am reminded of a fella that worked Downtown Minneapolis many years ago.  I would see him during lunch from time-to-time.  He would proudly wear a 'special' hat designed to prevent radio waves from attacking his brain.  

The 'hat' was a cardboard box.  The entire box was sheathed with tin foil.  The flaps of the box were extended outward (covered with foil of course) to form a brim of his special hat.  There were special louvers on the sides of the box, also covered in foil.  These special louvres were designed to allow any sneaky but unwanted radio waves to get out of his brain, in the event some stray photons managed to get past the tin foil.

For years I would see this guy walking to work, walking to lunch, leaving work--always wearing the same 'special' hat.  A fashion statement maybe?

I also had a neighbor once that demanded I remove a 2M Ringo Ranger from the roof of the house.  He was a retired fire chief.  He insisted: "Tornadoes are common around these parts.  And Tornadoes HATE antennas!  If a tornado 'sees' your antenna, it is going to head straight for it.  And it is going to take your house and mine in the process."  No kidding.  That is about an exact quote.  I argued with him for 15 minutes and finally gave up in disbelief that ANYBODY could be THAT stupid!  I had to agree with him that Tornadoes do seem to HATE antennas.  I later moved the antenna so HE couldn't see it any more and all was well in the neighborhood once again.

I witnessed one other little episode that simply must be shared.  I was helping a friend tune his 2M 10 element beam.  It was temporarily mounted to a 6' mast on his deck.  We were happily spinning it around, tuning & tweaking, when his neighbor came home from grocery shopping.

This women pulls into the driveway, gets out of her car and starts to gather grocery bags into her arms.  When she stood up, she looked over to where we work working on the antenna.  My friend just happened to be spinning the antenna at the time.  As the beam came around to point at the women, she dove to the ground behind the car with bags in arms as if there were incoming mortar rounds.  Then we saw her peaking through the windows at us.  When my friend move the antenna away, she DASHED to the house.

All true stories!

Ford-N0FP
ford at cmgate.com