Topband: W1BB (Tree)

[lstoskopf at cox.net]

Tree

The comment on 150M was a typo that 81 year old eyes didn't pick up.  Sorry.

Way back in the mid 60's an oil company put up a 400 ft radio tower on a hill in my Dad's pasture in central Kansas.  I had Dad put in the lease that I could put wire radio antennas on it and use the cheap tin building for my rig.  So I had the guy that erected it up put a triangle of open wire up to the 240 ft level as a feeder for 3 wires coming back down.  I had a Hallicrafters S40B RX and an ARC-5 modified TX and no heat.  I was in college and med school most of the time so it got little use.  I did work VK early in the morning during the summer wheat harvest period when I was home.  Thought that was a big deal.

Anyway, the pipe they used to build the tower was used, corroded tubing.  My friend, who changed the light bulbs, a minister who did that on the side for some extra cash, would climb it just before the first freeze with an ice pick to open the rust spots so the water that had seeped into the tubing wouldn't freeze and bring the tower down.  I think he prayed a lot.  It did come down in a winter wind storm one winter  so that was that.  I had a lot of fun...as W0PSF...but never did anything big.  But while W1BB was on a cruise across the Atlantic with his wife I operated a bit every night and got a neat report from him when he got back.  Apparently he found the ship noise to be quite bad. And was not allowed to transmit.

I  learned about the noise later.  My wife and I took a 100 passenger cruise from Tahiti to Mangreva to Pitcairn, on the Ducie and then Easter Island.  I took two TS-480s and a 15 meter vertical.  Only made about 100 contacts from each on 15 due to the time limit and daytime only.  I tried to string up a wire while at sea, but the ship noise on 160 was too intense so gave that up.  Interestingly, the radio operator was a Ham on his last trip as the rules on needing a radio op on those ships changed so he was out of a job.  Satellites took over.

We never were on land at night, but 160 would have been a fun try.

N0UU