2006 KØS, Kurt N. Sterba Strange Antenna Challenge

Hosted by Erik Weaver nØew and Dwayne Walker wb5plj,

Memorial Weekend, May 27-29, 2006

    Here Warren NM3U and his son John KI4ODU bring us a very strange antenna... the University of Kentucky football stadium! Using just 50-watts they managed a few contacts before they had to leave, including working Europe! Wow, how cool is this?! - Erik n0ew

    [Below] is a shot of the matchbox with the coax to the stadium, and the ground connection to the fire stand pipe. Since this was such a long run, and I wanted to stay within the guidelines as much as possible, I used the center of the coax to the stadium.

    BTW this matchbox is visible in the big stadium picture in front of the car.

    I don't think I told you...

    Sunday evening, when we first tried the stadium, the UK [University of Kentucky] police swarmed us. It turned out that they had parked their motorcycles just inside the fence, and had let the dogs loose to protect them.

    When I explained what we were doing, and SHOWED THEM YOUR WRITEUP ABOUT HOMELAND SECURITY, they became our best friends.

    They hung around, all of them, 7 cars, for an hour at least, until the city police pulled over a car with flashy lights, right at the edge of campus property. Then they all swarmed that.

    Warren NM3u

This shows the center conductor of the coax clamped to a support beam of the stadium.

This shows the matchbox connections.

John KI4ODU at the mic!

    Here is their tractor-trailer dipole...

• Tractor-Trailer Dipole

    Here is their parking structure lightpole array...

• Parking Structure Lightpole Array