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To: Professional Engineer
Oh what I wouldn't give to have a nice setup like you have.

I'd be spending nearly all of my Saturdays there plus many weeknights up to about 4 AM. (it always seems to me that the good stuff happens really late)

Here in hurricane country we very much appreciate the countless hours that ham radio community puts forth. If you think about all the people at TV stations, police departments, National Guard, paramedics, firemen etc. that are hard at work, remember that out of all that, the hams are among the very few who are not getting paid. No tax dollars, just good citizens who devote a lot of time and money (ham gear ain't cheap) to public service.

The government (FCC) rewards them by chopping up the ham bands in ever smaller pieces. In spite of all this the ham operators continue to be the most courteous radio operators out there.

I have a neighbor who has a set of beams up on his roof. A couple Saturdays ago I walked by while he was working outside on some connections. Aloft there must have been at least a half-dozen pigeons perched on the beam elements, so I asked him if the 'bird count' affected the SWR. Although I was joking, he said they really did affect it and for a while he couldn't figure out what was changing the tuning characteristics of the antenna system when nothing else had been changed.

199 posted on 02/17/2006 7:01:39 PM PST by capt. norm (Error: Keyboard not attached. Press F1 to continue)
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To: capt. norm
Aloft there must have been at least a half-dozen pigeons perched on the beam elements, so I asked him if the 'bird count' affected the SWR.

This might work as it helps on commerical buildings. Tell him to go to Home Depot and by an artifical owl. That should keep them away.

200 posted on 02/17/2006 7:20:43 PM PST by cva66snipe
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