pa0r

I came across a splendid idea the other day. One contest group has now installed a receiving antenna in a remote location. The connection to the station (K2 of course) is not via a coax cable, but via a broadband internet connection. Antenna direction switching and RX frequency setting can be done via the internet link (Tlf has been doing it for years), and a web cam makes sure you know immediately if the cows damage the antenna. The argumentation was: "we have too much noise at our contest location".

This set my mind off, and when that is the case there is no stopping...

I have seen a lot of nice, noise free locations on our various trips, one of my favourites being in the middle of the "Waddensea". You can hear the grass growing on Mars in that location (electro-magnetically spoken).

What if I hired one of those fancy satellite internet installations during a major contest, and auctioned the spot on EBAY!! Think about it. You are somewhere in California and you have tried to win the CQWW-SSB for the last 10 years but these darned guys in Aruba, HC8 or CT3 always win the pot....

This is your chance!!! You rent my antenna installation for the duration of the contest and you are the only one who can hear those thousands of low power and qrpp basterds in Europe who do not even bother to put up a decent antenna for the contest!! You can not imagine the pile up...

Now of course there is this rule that your antenna must be no further away from your main location than 500 meters, unless you own the property?

The solution is very simple. On the 1st of April I will offer you the opportunity to become co-owner of a small piece of land in the middle of Europe. I will auction ownership certificates on Ebay, and the bidding will start at $1000 per station per contest.

I will undertake to put an antenna on the piece of land, and facilitate a 1 MB/sec TCP socket to connect your station to. Stations in California will get 10% rebate as they are in a disadvantage anyway.

Of course we could strike a deal beforehand... If you don't want your competitor to grab this fantastic offer you can email me via pskmail...

Now how could I make this work for a M/M station? Could I organize an antenna for the Europeans which is located in Japan? Let's see. I would need to build 6 K2's, the satellite connection would cost Euro 90 for a month, .... And what about auctioning the roof of the camper including the fishing rod and the wire, that would make... There is a lot of mileage in this idea.

The financial aspects of my next vacation are settled!!!