I spent a couple hours down in the woods today 'trying' to resurrect my 160m
inverted L (not successful yet.long story) and I looked about 100' away from
where I was working and saw a CAR TIRE deep in the woods, on my property,
apparently hanging from a tree abt 10' off the ground. WTF?
(there are no paths here, no close neighbours on that side and you'd have to
be stir-crazy to be monkeying about with anything in this patch of woods, in
the subzero winter, on a steep very rocky slope, in deep snow.. so at first
glance I couldn't imagine why a tire was up a tree!) Bears? Moose? Elves?
Yeti?
I worked away a cpl hours at my semi-recently collapsed 160m inv L,
eventually getting all the fallen ropes and wires unstuck from under a foot
or so of snow, and untangled from multiple trees and bushes but ran out of
steam putting it all back up. When attempting to reinstall, I kept
breaking my fishing line when I was pulling the new rope over the trees; got
disgusted and had enough. Normally I break very few lines or ropes, so a
combination of cold temps and icy/snowy ropes made everything heavier and a
bit more brittle I think.
I don't give up easy, but a guy has to know his limits.
(not easy wading through a foot or so of snow , walking a 300' path, over
and over untangling 130' of wire and 200' of ropes, being an old fat guy
when it's -7*C outside) .So, even though I was dog tired, the curiosity got
the better of me.and after a short coffee break I had to go look at this
mystery tire.
Somewhat refreshed, I stomped a new path, across the field and through the
snow and down into the woods to investigate.
All my 4 square verticals terminate about 6-8' off the ground, each with 2
raised radials , then at the junction(insulator) of each ground plane, it's
tied to a short 6-8' rope, which is then tied to a tire laying on the
ground. (hey, recycle when possible, eh?).nobody can see these 'down over
the hilld, in the woods' from the road or my house, so it's not an eyesore.
Normally the tires are covered in leaves/brush/plants/twigs or snow, and are
down a steep slope so out of sight-out of mind. I never think about them.
Turns out , sometime quite recently , a HUGE tree fell and took out some
(more) of my (recently repaired) raised radials AND it also came down on
top of the horizontal part of one of my 80m inverted L verticals. The
12#awg stranded wire didn't break. The immense tree just hauled most of the
wire quite literally right to the ground and so the tire, rope (and coax and
vertical and 2 raised radials) went flooop, right up in the air. What a
sight that would've been to behold. (Like a Rube Goldberg device). I am
lucky that it didn't go up in the air a couple more feet, otherwise the coax
would've likely ripped apart all the switching and dummy load etc at the
center of the array.
Badly tangled, I cut the wire and got enough purchase on the tire with a
stick to pull it back down to Earth.
I was wondering why my SWR was so high to the NW in NAQP CW the other
night. I guess I now know.
I am sure the neighbours must think I am certifiable. Fishing in trees in
the middle of January, untangling what must seem to them like miles of rope
and wire in a huge snowy field (~1ac.), then later, hauling in a tire out of
the nearby woods as my reward.
Oh, yeah. I'm nuts.
Mike VE9AA
Mike, Coreen & Corey
Keswick Ridge, NB
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