12/09/2006 | N0DET Since I live in a condo, and past contests with the gutter "antenna" yielded a desire for something better, I decided (on a whim) to do something different. At about 9:45pm I grabbed a spool of wire, and spooled out two lengths wire, about 130 feet each. With these two wires, an antenna tuner and my FT-817 in hand, I snuck out to the garage for some stealth 160 meter operation.
I ran one wire to the north behind the garage (as a counterpoise) and the other leg to the south, partly in trees to get it maybe 20 feet off the ground. Neither leg was straight - they were both bent to fit the room I had to work with. Oh, did I mention it was 22 degrees and snowing hard? This added much to the fun. The bottom ends of the wires ran through a small hole in the back of the garage wall (Gee, how did THAT get there?!?) straight to the tuner, so I effectively had a 1/4 wave mostly horizontal inverted "L" working against a counterpoise.
This quick lashup netted me 20 stations and 12 sections in two hours before I decided to pack it in for the night. Not only was it getting late, but my sending hand was getting really cold, and I was starting to make a lot of mistakes in my sending... I finished out the rest of the contest from indoors, with the scrunched attic dipole.
This contest is always fun, and thanks to the 160 meter regulars who were patient enough to work my qrp signal. -- N0DET