[Lowfer] 2200m-vention and close down

[Ed Phillips]

Lyle Koehler wrote:
> 
> I saw a discussion on one ham radio newsgroup a few years ago regarding the
> use of guns as aids for putting up Field Day antennas. One person detailed
> the procedure for using a rifle fitted with a grenade launcher -- preferably
> using dummy grenades. For us poor civilians who don't have access to such
> hardware, another suggestion was to use a potato cannon, for which there are
> many designs available on the Web. All it takes is some PVC pipe and a
> little hair spray or propane. Neither technique is likely to make you very
> popular with the neighbors, though.
> 
> I have also seen specials on the Discovery channels about punkin chunkin'
> contests and reconstructions of various middle-age trebuchets. With those,
> Bill A might be able to skip the intermediate steps and launch 3/4 inch pipe
> directly. I'm not sure what the appropriate warning would be prior to such a
> launch. "Fore!" may not be adequate. Maybe something more like "Take that,
> you gravy sucking pigs!", or whatever the Monty Python line was.
> 
> Lyle, K0LR

	I think that someone familiar with ML guns (I've been at 'em for about
60 years) could safely give it a try; it's not uncommon to shoot a ram
rod out of a gun with a few grains of power down the nipple hole ["FIRST
the powder THEN the ball"!] and they usually fly down the range for as
much as a hundred yards.  I suspect launching a sinker with line
attached wouldn't be hard, provided the line was loose enough that the
ball didn't come flying back at the shooter!  Of course, bows (or cross
bows) are less obvious and you can attach the line farther back,
improving the stability.

	If I get up enough ambition I'll take a sinker and some monofilament
line with me next time I go to the range and see what happens. Nothing
ventured nothing gained.

Ed