VE6AB Portable Ops

All the photos in my galleries expand and include captions located beneath the photos.

135 / 164

Just add water

So after driving 120 kilometers to get here, I discover that I had left my cordless drill with the 1/2" drill at home.
With the ground froze hard, how was I going to set up my vertical without the required 1/2" hole drilled to place the coaxial junction box with included ground spike in.

Well I wasn't about to drive home without accomplishing what I set out to do, and with a Eureka moment, I came up with a solution.
With the temperature pegged at -16 Celsius, the answer was a liter of water that I had with me in my mobile.

While holding the antenna mast in one hand, and with packed snow against the ground spike, I then poured the liter of water on the snow surrounding the spike.
10 minutes later with ice formed around the spike, I was able to set up the rest of the antenna.
Of course the same problem existed for placing the guy-line anchors, but that was easily overcome with light punding the anchors in place just enough to hold the antenna steady.

6N4A2293 005