Sunday started out rainy. A steady downpour for nearly two hours meant cool weather and a delay in my plans. I had intended to hang a dipole antenna between two trees on the property, but had to postpone the project while it rained.

My vertical has been working just fine. Pile-ups are the order of the day whenever I get on the air and propagation is anywhere nearly cooperative. But the vertical is about to become permanently connected to Gernot Frauscher’s very sophisticated QRP beacon transmitter. I wrote about this project in an earlier post.

I have Gernot’s transmitter in my possession and will get it installed and running very shortly. Stand by. But, since I am losing the vertical, I need some antenna to operate phone from my Icom.

When I moved here from the Caribbean, I brought with me a partial spool of THHN 12 AWG solid copper wire, a leftover from flipping a house in St. Croix. Since I had the wire and was paying for an extra bag full of radio gear, I decided to bring it along for a dipole antenna. I also brought a WA1FFL Ladder-Loc antenna connector and a spool  of ladder line. So Sunday, I got the parts together and waited out the rain.

By 830, the rain was over, but the clouds remained. This was good. It meant the weather stayed cool, the sun not hot. Being right on the equator, the sun is hotter and more intense here than the northern latitudes. I am grateful for shade provided by Mother Nature herself. So, I gathered up a bag full of parts – wire, connector, rope, string, a few tools and headed outdoors.

I tied one end of the spool of wire to the fence and uncoiled it. I ran it all the way out then doubled back. Returning once again to the fence I tied the other end, found the center point, and cut the wire in half. I was not concerned about the length, only that both lengths were the same. I then dragged the two center ends near an electrical outlet. I prepared the ladder line to fit in the connector, stripping back enough to make a solder joint at the end of each leg of the dipole. Out came the soldering iron and solder. In a few minutes the joints were made and the connector assembled. My radio shack at this location is on the second floor. I returned to the shack, opened a window, tied a piece of light cord to a security bar, and tossed out the cord.

Back down again on the lawn, I tied the loose end of the light cord to the spool of ladder line and laid the center point of the dipole directly beneath the shack window, eyeballing the line where the antenna would hang between the two tallest trees. Stretching the antenna out to the tree most difficult to get to, I found a rock and tied a piece of string around it. This would be my guided missile to launch the string followed by nylon rope (all I could find here) followed by the antenna. I had to toss this over two shorter trees before getting the end of the antenna to the tallest “mast.” Tossing the rock proved to be a challenge for the last tree. There is a telephone cable directly in the path of launch so it compromised my throwing style. After a couple of throws I got it over a high branch, but I wanted the higher one.

At this point I lost my mind and tried to pull it back out and over the branch. Well, I jerked a little too hard, the rock made a flying loop around the branch, and is till there today, hanging  like a prehistoric Christmas ornament. So, I needed a new rock. I finally found a lighter one and tied it up. A couple of attempts later and it was over the right branch. I tied the rope to the end of the string and threaded it over followed by the wire itself. I tied off the rope to a fence post and gathered up the stuff for the final launch.

The second tree sits out in the open making a toss to a high branch easier to throw if not easier to reach. I could swing the string on this end and fire off the missile. Birds scattered in fright but the rock found its mark on my second try. Feed the line up and over, tie it off and the antenna was up.

I gathered up by tools and climbed the stairs to the shack.  Untying the light cord, I hoisted the spool of ladder line up to the second floor and through the window. Allowing some slack, I cut and stripped back the wire, threaded it through the connectors on back of the tuner (a MFJ –974 Balanced Line Tuner) and fired it up. After a half hour or so of tuning each band, marking the settings for reference alter, I tuned through the 20 meter band.

My first station worked was in the Ukraine, US4MCD. Last night I got into Australia easily – VK2GWK. So it works good enough for now. When I return to Uganda later this year I will bring a log periodic and rotator. I can build a tower here quite easily, the antenna is the issue.

Little by little the roster of equipment is expanding. I have one more antenna at the Masaka site I want to connect, a split dipole for 40 & 20 meters, but I am running out of time so don’t think I will get that connected until later.