I remember one in particular, circa 1959. I had been licensed about a year and needed a tower. My then neighbor and Elmer the late Lee, W7UVR, had a 30' aluminum one laying in his yard and I asked him to "donate" it to me.
He said that if I helped him install the ground radials under his V80 he would give me the tower. I naively said yes. It's necessary to set this up. Although the neighborhood was nice, one-acre lots then on the outskirts of Tucson, my family was working class and Lee was the recent beneficiary of a large trust fund. Why he remained in the neighborhood was a mystery to me, but nevertheless, he did. This is especially baffling considering that he had a noisy power line cutting across the cornet of his lot, so until Collins came out with their noise blanker for the 75A-4 sometime later, he couldn't hear anything. So he decide to go mobile. You can see THE mobile here: http://www.k0bg.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=1079 Clearly, Lee didn't do anything half-way. The same was true for the home station: A bank of built-in 6' relay racks populated with a common power supply and modulator and individual amplifiers for each band using push-pull 304TLs. Still, since he couldn't hear much, he got himself an appointment as an ARRL "Official Bulletin Station", retransmitting W1AW announcements. Thus the need for a multi-band omni-directional antenna to augment the Christmas tree Telrex stack. When I entered this picture the vertical was standing and the transmission line was in place. I swear I'm not making this up, he was using rigid, air-insulated hardline filled with nitrogen. Not content to have a sloppy installation he wanted four-foot ground rods at the end of each radial so that the wire could be pulled tight and anchored to them. This is where I came in, he needed some to pound ground rods. I don't remember exactly how many I drove but I did it for days. As I remember, before he became wealthy he had designed BC stations, I suspect it was the classic 120. When I got done, we stretched and soldered the wire and he called in a landscaper to cover it all up with topsoil. I picked up my 30' tower and walked the two blocks home with it. --- On Sun, 3/15/09, Ken Kopp <k...@rfwave.net> wrote: > From: Ken Kopp <k...@rfwave.net> > Subject: [Elecraft] Elecraft] 43' Vertical and the K2 tuner > To: "Steve Ellington" <n...@carolina.rr.com>, elecraft@mailman.qth.net > Date: Sunday, March 15, 2009, 1:48 PM > Steve, I thought of the Gotham, but doubted if anyone would > remember .... (:-)) > > You must be OLD, like me! > > 73! Ken Kopp - K0PP > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > Please help support this email list: > http://www.qsl.net/donate.html ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
