AmateurRadio.com

The day started out hazy, warm and humid. As I parked my car at work this morning, I was able to see the haze just hanging in the air, against the dark background of the trees. According to Google, humidity at the time was 91% – almost like being in a shower.

This is the type of summer weather that you get accustomed to if you live in New Jersey for any extended period of time. While it is expected, it can make a Ham’s life …. interesting, to say the least. Antennas are left disconnected, as you never know when a thunderstorm is going to pop up. And pop up they do, swiftly – and seemingly without a lot of warning. Just yesterday, we had two bouts – one near 4:00 PM and another around 7:00 PM, complete with lightning, thunder rumbles and heavy downpours. The National Weather Service has issued a tornado watch for just about all of New Jersey, effective until 10:00 PM tonight. Summer in NJ – you gotta love it!

This weather is also making my radial project interesting. Kneeling down on a wet lawn, in order to secure the wire to the earth is, well …. just so much fun. The bright side is that the grass will grow much quicker in these tropical conditions, and as a result, the green colored insulation will disappear into the lawn all that much faster. My wife will appreciate that.

Pickings were slim at lunchtime. There were many signals on 17 Meters. But it seemed like it was a case of either,

A) It was a new station and I wasn’t being heard, or
B) It was a station that I had already worked before.

As a personal rule, I try to avoid working the same DX stations over and over on the same band. I would much rather someone else get the chance to put that particular DX station in their log for that band.

I did snare DL6ZXG, Klaus in Derenburg, Germany, receiving a 559 report. From his QRZ page, you can tell that Klaus is quite the active Ham. Not only does he hold 5BDXCC, and the ARRL’s Triple Play WAS award, but he also has over 20,000 look ups on QRZ. That shows me that you’re on the air a lot!

The lack of working a plethora of stations at lunch time gave me time to snap some photos of the setup, as requested. Nothing exotic or spectacular, which is a good thing. If I can have success with this arrangement, then you can too, with something similar.

Will I earn DX Honor Roll this way? No, of course not, but I will get more than my fair share of fun, and THAT’S the point, isn’t it?

I must give credit where credit is due. Bob W3BBO gave me the idea of using my Buddistick on the car this way. Up until then, I had been deploying the Buddistick in a much more “conventional” manner. Bob clued me in about using the car as an enhanced ground plane, and let me tell you – this arrangement makes the Buddistick soar! (That’s a W3FFism!) I had never thought of this on my own (duh!) and I will forever be indebted to Bob for his “out of the box” thinking. This works so much better than individual Hamsticks.