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Ham Radio hijinx:


Several of us had recently gotten our ham radio licenses. Mostly tech-no-code, but I had someone squeaked
out a General without studying. (it was a MIRACLE that I got my 5wpm) So several of us had HTs. And that
just gives us more ammunition for Cat and Mouse.

I drove to the highway South of town, and dropped off Mark (KB0TQW) with his HT, he was to hide in a bush
at that overpass and report what he saw to me. I drove down to the next overpass and hid UNDER it, so it
would direct my signal up and down the highway, hopefully lighting up his overpass good. Plus being UNDER
this overpass, it should pretty heavily attenuate my signal up above. Game on.

As luck would have it, we immediately sucked ALL the cats into Mark's area, and he started reporting what
they were doing. Now here's the thing - one of the "privileges" you get as the Mouse is you get to torture
and antagonize the Cats. The best way to do this is to comment on what they're doing, because if I can see
you, then you must be close, right? "BEEP BEEP BEEP! Tony you better slow it down backing up in that field!"
"Brad, you've already looked behind that building twice now, I'm not there!" "Hey Craig, long time no see?
Left tur-oh wait RIGHT turn Clyde!" Someone was sharp and noticed that Mark wasn't taking turns talking on
the radio as we hid, and so we covered by saying "he fell asleep again!" (he was known for that)

We had them wound up like an overturned watch. Of course I was like 1/10 of a mile away and was definitely not
able to see them, had no line of sight, but we had them convinced they were close. Every time one of them would
leave the area, we'd comment, "hey Tony where ya going? Come back, we'll miss you!" and "oh look Tony's back,
where have you been? Did you find anything good over there by Target?"

So after about 20 minutes of this abuse, finally Tony leaves the area again. "Shut up, I don't want to hear
it, I'm following my meter now!" And of course he found us about 15 minutes later. We had to go back and
pick up Mark though before we met to start the next round.




last updated 11/17/2023 at 11:53:05