Simple Antennas for the Hawaii Amateur Radio Operator--a continuing series
Happy New Year's Greetings from Laupahoehoe along the beautiful Hamakua Coast. This was the first day I could spend some extended time with my favorite pursuit--Amateur Radio. There are no obligations until I return to the classroom on Thursday. With that in mind, I checked out the "antenna farm" in the back yard and ran a few contacts in the Straight Key Night event hosted by the ARRL. I found the 40-meter inverted vee did an excellent job on 40 and 15 meters. It's good to see some propagation after several years of marginal conditions. Before breaking for lunch today at around 2057 UTC, I decided to drop in on a "New Year's Net" hosted by Neal, AE1P up in New Hampshire. His signals were excellent, running between 57 and 59. It so happens I need New Hampshire for my QSL collection, so I just dropped my call into the roundtable, hoping a puny 5 watts could make the trip. Wonder of wonders, he and a few others in the net were able to copy my ol