Adventures in Ham Radio

[alfsauve]

Don't go to Gatlinburg.  It use to be the Art/Crafts center of the area. Quiet little town with mountain streams running along side the highway.  Only had one blinking yellow light.  After supper you could stroll the streets, literally the streets there was so little traffic. (circa 1960)   Now it's become so over crowded,  "touristy" and the streams are all hidden behind commercial establishments.  We go up to Knoxville and drive down to Pigeon Forge/Sevierville from there.  In the three visits in the last 10 years, only once did we try to go the Gatlinburg.  When we finally got there, we decided just to drive on through and take the backwoods mountain roads back.

[Big Frank]

Dolly Parton has donated books to our local libraries and I respect the heck out of her for that. Like I told my friends when I gave their baby boy some books, you give a child a love of reading and you give them a gift that lasts a lifetime. I gave him some baby books he could chew on and tear the covers off of if he wants to, and some Captain Underpants books for when he's a little older. His parents actually asked us to buy him books, which really surprised me. I have a boxed set of The Bad Guys books I plan on reading myself someday then giving to him.

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is dedicated to inspiring a love of reading by gifting books free of charge to children from birth to age five, through funding shared by Dolly Parton and local community partners in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and Republic of Ireland.

Inspired by her father’s inability to read and write Dolly started her Imagination Library in 1995 for the children within her home county. Today, her program spans five countries and gifts millions of free books each month to children around the world.

https://imaginationlibrary.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Underpants

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bad_Guys_(book_series)

[alfsauve]

Probably next week I'll be putting up the horizontal (slanted) end-feed, 5 band dipole.  I ordered a Forester line throwing bag and line.  Have done some measurements and decided to use the neighbor's tree which will give me E-W coverage.   Reason for using the neighbor's tree is that she's left he house vacant for ~15 years now.  I watch over it and call her when there's a problem.  She has a lawn care company keep up the outside.  She done some updating this fall but still no one is ever there.  Don't ask why she hasn't sold it already.  I've been happy not to have neighbors for all this time.   Miss Kitty and I, as well as several other neighbors use her driveway for overflow parking which is nice.  Figure I need to try that tree first before she sells the house and I really have neighbors.

[Big Frank]

Line throwing may not be a very good reason to buy a Can Cannon, but it is a reason.   And at night you can pretend you're Batman. I replaced the cheap piece of crap upper mine was built on with a good, mil-spec, forged upper. Now you can't twist the upper and lower back and forth like you're wringing them out.

https://xproducts.com/first-responder-grappling-hook-and-line-launching-system/

[alfsauve]

A little over the top, me thinks.  PVC blasters for line throwing are all the rage in many ham communities, but my warnings of the danger of pressurizing PVC fall on deaf ears.  I saw a commercial one for sale using steel pipe and a butterfly valve.  Safer but expensive to throw one line, maybe one time. I think a line throwing bag is the way to go.  Notice tree crews use them a lot around here.  When I had a dipole, I actually climbed the tree and place pulleys up about 60 feet.  I was much younger back then.

[Sponsor]

[Big Frank]

I'm WAY too old to climb trees, because I'm too old to fall out of trees. When I read PVC blasters, the first thing I thought of was potato guns. Instead of compressed air, you spray something flammable like hair spray in it and spark it off with the working parts of a piezo barbecue lighter, or other, dumber means. If I'm right, pumping one up with an air compressor seems akin to using smokeless powder in a black powder gun. Mmm, no thanks.

I used to use a long chain shackle, a 4"x8" dee, on the end of a tow rope or strap to lasso branches on the trees hanging over my back yard, and pull down on them until they broke off. Luckily, I didn't hit my myself in the head and end up in the ER. A sock full of sand would hurt a lot less than a heavy-duty shackle you could tow a tractor with. It has a 3/4" diameter cross pin with a hitch pin clip on it, and I have an extra drawbar with no trailer ball in the 2" receiver on the back of my Yukon. In the past I've used this setup to pull people out of the snow with my truck, and I usually leave that drawbar in place all winter, then swap it out the first time I pull my trailer up north in the spring. It's kind of like the shackle in this picture, but with the hitch pin shown at the right, instead of a screw in pin. The pin was a lot longer than it need to be, so I cut it down to 5 1/2", ground a taper on the end, and re-drilled it, so the hitch clip is right next to the shackle when the pin is all the way in.

[Rastus]

Fishing rod & reel and a lead weight or a loose nut of proper size and weight.  Toss across and then pull up nylon line and then the rope. 

Takes a little while to get the hang of it....

[Big Frank]

Like using a string to haul up a rope, or a rope to haul up a cable. But smaller. Good thinking, and a lot safer. But a line throwing gun would be more fun.   Here's a custom made .45-70. KA-BLAM! What are you doing? Putting up a radio antenna.

https://www.firstoutrescue.com/bridger-line-throwing-gun.html