A surprise might be just around the corner...

Foundations of Amateur Radio This crazy hobby keeps sending curve balls to me. You've heard me talk in the past about missed opportunities. There are times when you look back and ask yourself: "What was I thinking?" Over the past, oh boy, I just looked it up, two years, I have been struggling with an antenna system that I could use while mobile. I took delivery of 4 single band antennas, one for 80m, one for 40m, 15m and one for 10m. I also purchased a boot-lip mount and some other things like coax switches and adapters. I've been attempting to make these antennas work with very, very limited success. They work just fine, they tune up as expected, show the SWR curve that the manufacturer has helpfully printed on a little card that comes with each antenna and generally are sturdy, compact and wonderful, but only if they're installed on something other than my car. In desperation a year ago I purchased a tuner for my radio, so at least I can trick it into transmitting. I have made very few contacts, added one or two DX countries in the past year and really got no-where. So, during the week I recalled that one of the things I purchased was an adapter. It's got a PL-259 socket on one end and a CB-thread on the other. I dug it out, found the thread that goes into the hole and attempted to attach it to the CB antenna I was given within a month of becoming an Amateur. It had been modified to work on 10m and most of my DX contacts had been with that antenna. So, I attempted to attach the adapter and it doesn't fit. So I look around my shed and notice another antenna that I was given at the same time that never worked, it's a multi-tap antenna. Picture an antenna that is a big stick, has wire would around its entire length with points where you can attach a lead to bypass some of the antenna. You plug the lead into the bottom connector, then pick the band you want to work on, put the other end of the lead into the right tapping point and off you go. It came with a big spring mount, was intended to be bolted to a bull-bar, but using a family sedan, makes attaching this contraption pretty hopeless. It'd tested it where I could, measured it, tested more, made a new wander lead with a solid connector and nothing I did made it work. It turns out that the thread in my adapter fits properly into the base of this multi-tap antenna. I took it out into a local park, put the antenna with the lead on 40m, bolted it to my boot-lip mount, halfway pulled out the tuning end, a little metal spike that you can use to adjust the length of the antenna and turned on my radio. Guess what happened next? Nothing, that's what happened. I was stunned, into silence, imagine that, me silent. It worked. No adjustments, no trimming, no fixes, nothing. Just plugged it in and it worked. Propagation was pretty poor, so no contacts as such, but oh my. The point of all this is that when you least expect it, a surprise might come your way. Look at the assumptions you've made in your shack, think of the things you've tried and failed to achieve and use that to take a fresh look at what you have. Hopefully your delight will be just as surprising as mine was. I'll be back on air a lot more, who know's I might even get the opportunity to have a chat with you. I'm Onno VK6FLAB