Well, the 43 foot vertical

baged me the Czech Republic last night on 17 meters.

As soon as I had it up I threw down a 202 foot piece of wire for a radial anr ran another to a ground rod and tuned it up and checked in with Jda in the Younf Ladies International SSB Society. SHe's in Texas and gave me a good signal report. I had other things to do so I shut the rig down after I made sure it would tune on all other bands except 160 meters which I knew it would not.

A few hours later I went on 17 meters and bagged a Czech with a pair of 5x7s which was great.

Today after I get my injury checked I will install the radials, all 16 of them, 30 feet long if the rain gods hold off.

One ot the things the therapy people have given me are a bunch of exercises to do and that I suppose is OK for someone that sits around and feels sorry for himself when he is injured but I stay busy and as a result I do most of these exercises in my typical day.

Still, I do the exercises simply because I realize that even though I stay busy I may not be using ALL of the muscles the therapist has me lined up to use. A long time ago I learned that unless there is a damned good reason you go where they send you and do what they tell you.

The neighbors, at least all but one, are pretty good about the things I do. After 20 years or so here they have figured that I am not going to do anything too wild and when I start setting up something like an antenna in the backyard they drop by out of curiosity more than anything else. Sometimes they wind up helping me out.

As I write this I think that this is a neighborhood where diversity would work.

Not the stupid crap the government rams down your throat every time you turn around, but the real kind.

I'm accepted here and I am an oddball of sorts beacuse I am always doing things that are out of the norm, yet instead of risistance I generally get curiosity.

There was the initial entry period yet when I passed muster I was accepted, although it took a couple of years for me because I was always seen with various firearms headed to matches and I was sometimes blowing stuff up.

By the time the Seeing Eye Cat showed up they were amused instead of alarmed. They became my biggest supporters of our mischief.

I was also always doing my own work and it took some getting used to when I would singlehandedly tackle a project. I suppose they were simply worried I was going to do something wierd. Instead they found out I knew what I was doing and wasn't going to

Of course, unloading a truck full of waxed dynamite cases into the garage when I moved in scared the hell out of everyone but when I mentioned that the guy that gave me the boxes worked on a road crew, everything settled down. Of course, I got a visit from various law enforcement right off the bat, but that was a once over and when they saw that the cases of dynamite contained dirty underwear and kitchen utensils they went away.

Still, I figure if some guy from India moved in it would take him the obligatory period of being checked out to see if he was an asshole until he would be accepted. The same would go for just about anyone.

Of course, there is the old bag up the street and Nebby Larry but I suppose no neighborhood is complete without a couple of people like that. Nebby Larry generally gets ignored and the old bag up the street has been beaten down pretty good because I have simply let her make a fool out of herself a bunch of times. She's just plain stupid, anyway.

Anyway, this is today's post because I have to go and spin the wheels of industry.



my other blog is: http://officerpiccolo.blogspot.com/ http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/