Cayman update #2a

I just wanted to post a quick couple of pictures from the trip. First, here's a view of how close the antenna was mounted to the roof. That roof is metal, as is (obviously) the railing that the antenna is attached to, and most of the windows are metal as well. The counterpoise wire is angling off to the left in this shot, but it's just about impossible to see. Also, it's a little hard to tell from this angle, but the antenna was mounted on the 2nd floor.

Aside from the difficulties with the antenna, the actual physical operating conditions were hardly difficult. That's me during the IOTA contest operating from our bedroom at the house. You can see the laptop and radio in the picture, the power supply was a few feet away on a chair (mostly because it has a fan that is pretty noisy and runs constantly. In the background, looking out the window in the foreground you can see the Buddistick antenna, and past that, across the water, is the Blue Tip Golf Course. Yeah, we did have a pretty amazing view out the window.

Admittedly, this was not a "roughing-it" trip by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, short of actually living there full-time this was about as easy as it gets. Scott, NE1RD commented in his blog that his idea of roughing it was staying in a hotel that didn't have room service. Well technically, we didn't have room service here (it was essentially a private house) but since we did have maid service I guess that doesn't count. About the toughest thing that I had to do was to open the slider to adjust the antenna, which let some of the heat into the room. Gee, I guess I'd better not complain to the BS7H folks.