Friday it was still really wet so I didn’t get much done…I got out and had my 3 mile walk in while it was still cool… although it stayed cool all day… I had some breakfast and then did some research on antennas and stuff… it was too wet out to do much as I had dried the stupid dogs off 3 times already by noon… I did however move the vertical Antenna and pull some posts and set some others for the antennas in the afternoon.
I had temporarily set up the vertical on the post that has the bluebird house… It was a quick place to test but was only 20 feet from the back of the metal barn so I was sure it was effected by the barn in some ways… I also wanted to get it out away from things and be able to run a ground counterpoise into the pond to see if that makes any difference… so much of Friday afternoon I spent getting all those things moved, and prepared and some counterpoise wires run, one into the pond and one to the north…. I know it needs a lot more but two is better than nothing…
so it has about a 100 foot wire run out and into the pond … and another 100 foot run north into the woods… I had to get them laid down so , Maybe I can mow over them too… I probably need to run the edger down and get them a bit lower? same with the coax I ran out to the vertical… but it does work better, not as good as the dipole but better…although the bands are pretty crappy so I didn’t get a real good test on it but tried some things Friday night…
Today we went to breakfast and then the farmers market to get some more of the sweet corn… it sure is good then stopped and got some flower pots at Walmart. Couldn’t find what we needed at Lowes… Once I got that stuff home I spent several hours re-potting some plants and ‘butchering some others… We have a Schefflera that is old and spindly and all over the place… crooked to boot… I have said I was going to cut it back or throw it out but Sherrie has had it for a really long time so I am attempting to cut the tops out, and try to get a start from them… it all came to a head when one of the stems sprouted a leaf way down low and I figured if it could do that then I could cut the top of that one off and it would be ok… so I did and then just cut the other one as well…
That is what is left after I cut the tops out… you can see the big long stem from one that I didn’t trim all the way down and the short brown stem under the leaves is another side that has a very small sprout leaf on it… the leaves are from a small shoot that came up in the middle and it is crooked as it can be and very small so maybe it will not straighten up and grow out… if the big long spike sprouts near the bottom I will cut more of it out as well… it all used to be about 6 ft. tall…
I repotted some starts from this plant that took off real well…
Now I need to trim it some more… it got way to tall and spindly as well…(this one came from my Dads funeral) and I have sprouts from this one
This one my Dad kept alive for years and I believe it came from my mom’s funeral… ? I now have about 4 pots of each in some measure of growth… several of the lower one are doing well but were real slow to start the upper one I put 5 in a big pot and set it out and they all started and were putting on new leaves in a month? beyond those I have the airplane (spider) plant that Sherrie has had a long time as well… and I have taken starts from it and given away pieces and now the main plant was looking poor as it has set on a lot of young plants so I cut them all off today and put them in pots… I also have some I potted last year…
Like this one that is putting out runners and flowers all over… I will have to cut the runners off at some time and I have one like it in the shop that has little plants on it as well… so I do good with some and poorly with others? will see how all this turns out this summer… the back deck is getting full…
After the potting I got the wild hair to change my dipole into a loop antennas… I turned my 160 meter dipole into a loop on the north side of the barn… that is what I did most of the afternoon… working on that and trying to figure out spacing and putting it up so I didn’t have to set posts… just tied off to trees and such… I got it re-set to a loop and tied the ends together and have done some testing… it hears really well so far… but my signals are not very strong off of it? Although if it hears a lot it just needs more testing to see why it doesn’t talk as well… it is now much better than the Windom which has a lot of noise on it… that was my day… as it was…
WD0AJG