You're not going to believe this but it's true.
I had hardly finished writing the comments below before I went looking for the
wife. Since my little dog, "Sparky", was hanging out in the entryway, I knew
she was on the front porch talking on the telephone, as she is prone to do. So
I let the dog out and motioned to her to keep an eye on him, since off the
porch the desert begins. The dog headed to the edge of the porch and that's
when I saw a Western Diamondback rattlesnake not four feet from the dog and six
feet from the wife. The snake went into strike position rattling furiously.
I managed to grab Sparky and pull him to safety. (This time)* I had the wife
keep an eye on the snake while I retrieved my 10-22 and dispatched him.
* I say this time because you would think the dog would have already learned.
A few years ago I was driving by a dog park where I often take the Sparky. I
hadn't planned to stop since it was about 107 degrees but he insisted. So we
whipped in and turned him loose inside the fence. In the middle of the area
there is a 10 foot length of 3 foot diameter concrete pipe laying down as a
play feature.
Totally uncharacteristically the first thing Sparky did was run into the pipe.
Inside was a snake trying to keep cool. Sparky came running out screaming. I
managed to catch him and when I saw his face I knew immediately what had
happened. Sparky is a little guy, about 18 pounds, and he was bitten right on
the snout. It wasn't pretty. Fortunately our regular vet was about two miles
away. I called ahead and since it was during Covid, they said call us when you
get here and we'll meet you outside.
When I got there someone came out and said, "The first thing we need is a
credit card, we'll run a $1k deposit." Obviously he survived, but I could have
bought another TS-890 for what the final treatment cost.
That's why I don't tune antennas in the dark.
Wes N7WS
On Monday, August 12, 2024 at 06:11:47 PM MST, Wes Stewart via Topband
<topband@contesting.com> wrote:
George,
You've pretty much staked out 7056+ for SFH. If you're on CW you won't be
using that for FT8, why not use it for CW?
On another note, I would like to get you on 80 and 160 FT8 to fill out my Bingo
card. I'm sure I'm not alone. But I keep rolling out of bed at 2AM to check
160 only to find that I missed you on 80 at 1AM. Could you give us a schedule
of some kind for these bands? (I need to manually retune my one antenna and I'm
not about to go out to the cactus patch in the dark and disturb the
rattlesnakes at their mealtime)
Thanks, keep up the good work.
Wes N7WS
_________________
Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
