[SixClub] It's Disgusting...

[K8RI on 50MHz]

Yup! It's disgusting.
For the last couple of weeks I keep hearing about all the band openings and
I've not heard a one. Welllll... That's not completely true. I did hear one
the day I turned on my rig. <sigh>

Been a bit busy and only had a chance to listen a little the one day.  I am
making progress on all the other projects though.  Plus we've only had a few
days out of the last few weeks where it wasn't raining. Mostly severe
thunderstorms.  We've already passed the normal rainfall *for a full year*

The last entry in my log is N3AUS on the third of April.  Prior to that I
had Florida, Minnesota, and NE Kansas with W6ZI (EM26) being my first
contact of the year appropriately enough on January 1st.

I closed out 2003 with W5CIA in Louisiana on Dec 31st.

I've made 9 contacts so far this year (Not counting 2-meter FM) and all were
on 6-meters.
Oh! So far this year the station has already been hit 3 times by lightening,
but no damage found...yet. (really impressed the neighbors though)  I
normally take three strikes a year on average. It looks like an early start
this year.  I might beat the average.  BTW that last strike was a multiple
that hit the tower, a pine tree across the road, and a power transformer on
a pole about 300 yards to the north. (they lost a TV set and a VCR)

We talk about grounding and my 144 and 440 beams are DC ground on the tower.
The coax is grounded at the tower and at the entrance as well as having
PolyPhasers on each line.  The coax for the 440 beams was unhooked and
laying on the desk.  I was starting to shut down the computer system when
the strike occurred.  There was the sound of an M-80 going off and about an
8 inch arc from the end of that coax to ground.  Yet that coax and ground
tie together at the entrance about 8 feet away.  The network went down, came
back up and all 4 computers reconnected.  That is with about 150 feet total
of Cat 5 cable serving as a network antenna.

The Midland (MI) swap is coming up the 19th of June  (Day before Monroe, MI)
so we'll see what kind of goodies I can pick up. Maybe I can even get the
6-meter beam repaired.  It still works but the boom support is laying on the
boom instead of being hooked about 3 feet above the beam in the center.

73 all,

Roger Halstead (K8RI, EN73 & ARRL Life Member)
N833R, World's Oldest Debonair (S# CD-2)
www.rogerhalstead.com