07/27/2004 | W7IS Myself and K7WQ try to operate FD each year from a different remote location. And this year we selected a place called 4th of July TrailHead about 20 miles from Tonasket, Wa. Its at an elevation of about 4000 ft and had high trees for putting up the all band ant that was in CQ mag last summer. We were able to get the ant up about 45 ft but it took a big effort using a bow and arrow and fish line. Next year we will have a better method rather than just laying the fish line on the ground :-) We had 7 heavy duty deep cycle storage batteries in parallel and operated 5 watts. Everything was going along pretty well until late Saturday night when the heavy rain and lightning started up. So while the lightning storm passed by we had to disconnect the ant. After 2 hours when it had calmed down a little we started operation again. But about an hour later the lightning got worse and we shut down for the rest of the night. At one point a large bolt of lighting hit the ground about 50 ft from the Motor Home. Very scary :-) Then on Sunday morning the rain the lightning subsided long enough to get in a few more qso's. But it was a hair raising 24 hours. At one point there were lighting strikes in our general area every few minutes and this continued for up to several hours at a time. -- W7IS