[SixClub] 6 OPENING

[K8RI on six]

On 4/26/2011 10:42 PM, doc at kd4e.com wrote:
> Had you bumped your head and you lost your mind?
>
> A sane person drives *away* from twisters!
>
> Yes, I have seen the movie "Twister".

Which is pure fantasy. Hanging onto something like that with the 
building around you would be like putting yourself inside a blender with 
all that stuff flying around.  IF you can see it, drive at right angles 
to it ...generally trying to get on its left side (South - *usually*) 
and then quartering behind it. Even though they *tend* to move from SW 
to NE they are unpredictable. Sometimes if you didn't know better, you'd 
think the things are alive and are trying to catch you. <:-))   Today 
makes the 6th one I've seen---in over 50 years.  I ended up in rain so 
heavy I couldn't hear the rig even with the volume all the way up and 
they had trouble hearing me.

Big hail.  Wear a hard hat and if it's really big hail...not even the 
top of your car will stop it.  That's where you bend over, put your head 
between your knees and kiss your..ahhh... butt good by.

Back in the mid 90's,  I flew into Jefferson County (Boulder CO) when 
they were having some storms in the area that were dropping hail large 
enough to splinter roof boards under the shingles.  We stayed well away 
from those big Cumulus, but I did see one spit out a twin (Inverted).  
The guy had just had it completely restored from the ground up.  He 
landed safely, but it was nothing but a pile of junk. Of course the 
Tornado at Sun n fun wrecked about 50 planes this year. Look it up for 
photos.  One Biz Jet sat there with small planes piled on top of it. 
Kinda sad when you think of the thousands of hours the builders put into 
those.

BTW I picked up a plasma torch today...er yesterday. Next is a Lathe and 
a Milling machine (Going to try and find rebuilt ones, otherwise they'll 
have to be imports). I have a nice MIG welder, but sure would like a TIG 
for Aluminum.   I'm gonna build me a BIG crank up and tilt over tower! 
<:-))  I'm gettin' way too old for climbing those tall towers. I'll let 
the tower bring the antennas down to me and put 'em backup.

My Neighbor (Ham who lives about 2 blocks from me) has a commercial 
crank up with a big StepIR on top. One tower and one antenna system 
covers 78-6-meters. He wants to know why I'm building one. Two reasons 
mainly. One, I want to do it and two, cost.  The only short coming is I 
don't have a source to hot dip galvanize it so it's going to require 
some good paint. <:-))

At least I need to get that 7L C3i on top of something and soon!

73

Roger (K8RI)

> ;-)
>
>> Well, it was an interesting evening, but I ended up taking my car out to
>> get it thoroughly washed by chasing storms. I did see one picture
>> perfect, well defined wall cloud with a funnel cloud  that kept growing,
>> but I never saw it reach the ground... Don't know if it did or not as
>> there was too much rain and I lost sight of it, just after it passed
>> over me.
>>
>> At least the 4-Runner is clean now.
>>
>> 73
>>
>> Roger (K8RI)