Bubba was bragging to his boss one day, "You know, I know everyone  that there is to know. Just name someone, anyone, and I know them."
          Tired of his boasting, his boss called his bluff, "OK, Bubba how about Tom Cruise?"
          "Sure, yes, Tom and I are old friends, and I can prove it."
          So Bubba and his boss fly out to Hollywood and knock on Tom Cruise's door, and sure enough, Tom Cruise, shouts, "Bubba! Great to see you!
          You and your friend come right in and join me for lunch!"
          Although impressed, Bubba's boss is still skeptical. After they leave Cruise's house, he tells Bubba that he thinks Bubba's knowing Cruise was just lucky.
          "No, no, just name anyone else," Bubba says.
          "President Clinton, "his boss quickly retorts.
          "Yes," Bubba says, "I know him, let's fly out to Washington." And off they go.
          At the White House, Clinton spots Bubba on the tour and motions him and his boss over, saying, "Bubba, what a surprise, I was just on my way to a meeting, but you and your friend come on in and let's have a           cup of coffee first and catch up."
          Well, the boss is very shaken by now, but still not totally convinced. After they leave the White House grounds, he expresses his doubts to Bubba, who again implores him to name anyone else.
          "The Pope," his boss replies. "Sure!" says Bubba. "My folks are from Poland, and I've known the Pope a long time." So off they fly to Rome.
          Bubba and his boss are assembled with the masses in Vatican Square when Bubba says, "This will never work. I can't catch the Pope's eye among all these people. Tell you what, I know all the guards so let me           just go upstairs and I'll come out on the balcony with the Pope." And he disappears into the crowd headed toward the Vatican.
          Sure enough, half an hour later Bubba emerges with the Pope on the balcony. But by the time Bubba returns, he finds that his boss has had a heart attack and is surrounded by paramedics. Working his way to his           boss' side, Bubba asks him, "What happened?"
          His boss looks up and says, "I was doing fine until you and the Pope came out on the balcony and the man next to me said, 'Who's that on the balcony with Bubba?'" 

    Hams working the VHF bands in SSB wish for horizontal antennas. The simple dipole is effective as are Yagis mounted properly. The Yagi is very directional and the dipole is somewhat so, being pretty deaf off the ends of the normal dipole. Many wish that they had a omnidirectional horizontally polarized antenna.  An overlooked but effective antenna is the turnstile. A very simple antenna made of two dipoles at right angles to each other in the horizontal plane but fed with a 90 degree difference.  Not only does this make a nice antenna for horizontal needs, it also radiates straight up (and down) in a circuit polarized mode. That would be useful for satellite communications.  This could be turned into a horizontally polarized antenna with gain if stacked and fed so that the elements were in phase.

    If you feel like experimenting with an entirely different antenna, something that no amateur in the area uses, maybe no amateur, try a slotted antenna.  This is a horizontally polarized antenna, even though it looks vertical. Think of a stove pipe standing up and slit from top to bottom with both ends capped off and fed with coax at the middle of the slot with the braid fastened to one side of the slot and the center conductor fastened to the other side of the slot. There was an example of this in Canada several years ago with a mobile six-meter rig. Supposedly, the slot had to be closed with plastic as the thing acted like a gigantic whistle.

Marion WA8MFL

    Alkaline batteries stored at "room temperature" will retain 90% of their power for years without refrigeration. Under normal circumstances, refrigerating or freezing alkaline batteries will extend their life by less than 5%.

    NiMH and NiCd batteries, start to lose power when stored for only a few days at room temperature. But they will retain a 90% charge for several months if you keep them in the freezer after they are fully charged. If you do decide to store your charged NiMH cells in the freezer or refrigerator, make sure you keep them in tightly sealed bags so they stay dry. And you should also let them return to room temperature before using them.

    Hint from all-battery.com