You know those times when you decide to let yourself surf aimlessly? And an hour later, you have absolutely no idea how you got to where you did?

I found the K0S Strange Antenna Contest page from 2003, where some ham radio operators started using, well, strange things as antennas. Who’d think that a ladder works well? (No no, not ladder line, but an actual ladder.) In fact, after working some people off of a ladder, they got an even better idea, and stood several ladders up, using them to support a pair of extension ladders laid horizontally, forming a ladder dipole, with impressive results. Sadly, they report that combining two shopping carts to make a dipole did not get them any contacts, nor did a basketball hoop.

This has me wondering what else would work… An aluminum chain link fence? A railing? Train tracks? Power lines? (Kidding on that one. Please do not try to attach anything to power lines.) Curtain rods? A couple of cars? A section of guardrail? A metal lamppost?

I poked around the site some more, to see if they did it in subsequent years. And they did. 2004, for example, saw my joke about using two cars come to fruition. (Okay, so they beat me to it by four years.) 2005 saw someone use a bronze statue, and, the next year, he was at it again with railroad tracks, albeit not full ones, but some sort of art exhibit / monument. (Aside: I’m pretty certain that trying to hook up a bunch of wires to train tracks may arouse a bit of suspicion by the police?) 2006 also saw a pair of exercise machines being used, with a comment about how they weren’t very effective, but the apt comment, “On the other hand, we did in fact make two contacts with a pair of exercise machines standing only a few inches above the earth!” And, confusing everything I know about antennas, someone used a tree. And a football stadium (which includes a commentary about how the university police were initially slightly suspicious about someone getting out of their car and hooking wires up to the stadium for some reason). 2007 saw a bridge as an antenna.

And 2008? Well, see, here’s the best thing. The 2008 Challenge is this weekend!

Of course, as a Technician-class license, I don’t have many HF privileges… The Technician license was (before all license classes saw it eliminated) the only class that didn’t require a Morse code exam, so it’s somewhat ironic that almost all of the new HF privileges Techs were given are in the CW portions of various bands. I do get 28.3-28.5 MHz now, allowing SSB on HF…

Time to hit the books, I think. (I think mine–and that one–might be outdated, actually. Looks like the question pool got revised in 2007.) There are always sample exams online, and the feedback can be helpful. Study a bit and take an exam a day, and then review your answers. (Theoretically, actually, you could just learn the answers to each question without understanding the concepts, though that’s really missing the spirit and point of ham radio.)