Of Triple Play and Antenna Maintenance

About time! I worked 13 Colonies special event station K2C in Rhode Island on phone and their QRZ page promises QSL via LOTW! That will be the last one for the phone portion of Triple Play. Now I just need West Virginia on CW. It kills me, I have QSOs in the log for both RI on phone and WV on CW (even have a card for RI), but the Triple Play award requires LOTW verification. Rules are rules. Unfortunately, West Virginia's second ARRL Centennial operating slot isn't until October 22, so to get this done soon I need to find another CW op in WV that uses LOTW. It could happen, I guess...

And another "about time!" -- almost a year after Tarheel sent me a replacement mounting bracket, I finally got around to swapping it out. The new mount fits perfectly. Now I can send the defective mount back and clear my conscious, as I promised to return it to them 11 months ago.

While I had the antenna broken down I did the recommended maintenance -- removed the plexiglass cover, clean the coil with alcohol and a ScotchBrite pad -- and took to the tripod's mast with some sandpaper to remove the black powder coat that I neglected to fully remove when I first set up the antenna in 2009. Now I know there is a good electrical connection between the mounting bracket and the ground radial plate.

I'm still missing a few radials, lost to the lawnmower no doubt, but I seem to be hearing a little better than I have been of late. Maybe it's just coincidental and the bands have simply improved the day I did antenna maintenance. It could happen, I guess...

Either way, I was able to add a few needed countries to my 17m count -- Romania, Belarus, Samoa, Philippines, Greenland -- as well as a few more of the 13 Colonies stations.