RadioBanter - View Single Post

July 24th 03, 09:06 PM

On 23 Jul 2003 03:14:23 GMT, ospam (Larry Roll K3LT)
wrote:

Oh, you mean like "disconnecting" antenna rotor control boxes with a
pair of dikes? Yes, indeed.

Is that how you highly technical CW ops handle it? Wow, I'll have to
suggest that to our ops next year...NOT!

12 hours to set up, 2 to tear down!

Amazing what you can do when gravity is working in your favor rather
than against you, isn't it? That wire that took six shots with a
slingshot to get over just the right tree branch comes down on the
*first* try when you cut the rope, almost as if by magic!

Fortunately, I'm not that hard on my own equipment, just a bit
unmotivated to get the station set back up for at least a month after
Field Day.

Most of my FD stuff is still in my van. However, since that's where it
also spends most of the rest of the year, that's no problem. Still, I
could stand to do some tidying up in the rear cargo area.

Since I run the digital mode station for my club, I have
to take not only my radios, but my whole bloody computer system
as well.

Sorry to break it to you now rather than before Field Day, OM, but
there now exist these wonderful little devices called laptop
computers. For that matter you can do some digital stuff with a Palm
handheld computer. Want a quick hundred bonus points next year? Get
somebody to load the APRS software on a Palm and mate it to their HT,
and demo APRS. I think there's also PSK31 software for the Palm.

BTW, don't try it at night unless you're good with the Palm graffitti.
Typing on that little Palm "keyboard" at a FD station at 3:00 in the
morning is bound to make your eye doctor independently wealthy. Been
there, done that, bought the t-shirt, later burned the t-shirt. :-)

Fortunately, that's the easiest thing to return to functional
normalcy at the home QTH. Can't be missing out on rrap now, can I?

Well, I managed to live without it for about four years, but then
again, here I am back again.

73 DE John, KC2HMZ