[SixClub] Weather & 6m Propagation

[K8RI (Roger on six)]

On 1/31/2011 8:25 AM, doc at kd4e.com wrote:
> What, no ice fishing?
>
> Have you seen those pictures of them fishing cars out
> of a lake?
>
One of my spring exercises is to fly over Saginaw Bay (at a couple 
hundred feet) and count the cars, Ice Shanties, and snowmobiles headed 
for Canada as the ice goes out. Some one had built a beautiful mobile 
ice shanty with dual axles and about the size of a big house trailer. 
About half of it was frozen in the ice after a thaw and refreeze.  I do 
have to be careful to stay well away from people of ice shanties that 
might have some one in them to maintain legal clearance.

I saw one guy trying to work his way out onto an ice flow to retrieve a 
snowmobile.  about 20 feet on one edge of the flow was touching shore 
ice.    It was only about 6 to 7 feet deep at the junction, but the 
snowmobile was over about 10 feet of water.  I imagine that ice was 
pretty flexible.   He should have fastened a couple of boards to his 
feet. 1 X 10 or 12's about 8' long actually work pretty well.   I know 
one guy and his son who use that approach to get out on the ice when it 
first freezes and is not strong enough to walk on.  They crawl out to 
get in on the *first* ice fishing of the year.

That's almost as bad as putting up an antenna during an ice storm to 
catch a band opening.


> May have been 6m contest rovers who were too busy making
> contacts to watch where they were going ... CQ, CQ ...
> splash!  Gurgle, gurgle ...
>
They usually fish out 3 to 5 cars a year out there.  Generally a car 
that goes through the ice is a total loss and insurance will not cover 
it. Of course it's an education to watch them hook a chain to the car or 
pickup and *JERK* the thing out of the ice. They often look like they've 
been in a bad wreck after than (lots of sheet metal damage)  They get 
pretty aeromatic after the weather warms up and the organic matter from 
the water and bottom that got into the interior gets a chance to "work". 
<:-)) As I said, pretty much a total loss.

73

Roger (K8RI)
>> I don't like frozen lakes.
>> Don
>> W4DNR