Sometimes life gets in the way of Ham Radio. Such has been the case at the W0HC QTH.
In the past month I've mostly finished the tower. Just some minor odds and ends to tie up before the snow flies. The grounding panel is built, the Polyphasers are installed. Coax is run. The tree is trimmed. And the beam works! I was able to work a station in Croatia over the past weekend, and made a few stateside contacts on 10m. The beam is awesome! I'll try to get some pictures of the finished tower, and the grounding panel soon.
As for life, it's just been busy. A weekend on the road, continuing DTV conversion stuff at work, getting all the power equipment ready for winter, etc. And we are now involved in a FIRST Lego League team, which I'm excited about. It's pretty neat to see a group of 9-14 year olds getting excited about engineering, even if they don't yet realize that it's engineering. Right now they are researching lots things about vehicles, like how tracks are used on tanks and other heavy equipment, alternative energy sources, and other things of that nature. And they are having fun building with Legos! We have a group of about 15 kids, several of which are girls.
I'm still messing around on the side with some ATV stuff. I have my modulator working, and have a couple of small amplifier modules sitting on the bench waiting for me to hook them up and try them out. The main thing that's slowing me down is still the lack of a high power amplifier. But, I may have some leads on a few, ranging from 100w to 400w. That should do nicely!