There I was yesterday, sitting on the side of the road (actually, off I-45N on the frontage road), at the intersection of grids EM20 and EM21, trying (unsuccessfully, it seems) to work the 1710z pass of SO-50 when the Texas State Police pull up behind my truck. You know the ones--the black and white units with a really large fellow wearing an impressive hat. To complete the picture, when he pulled up behind me I did have my arm out the window holding my home-brew 3-element 70 cm beam and pointing it where I could best hear the downlink. And he said, "What you in for, son?" Just kidding--and sorry for mixing metaphors. What he actually said was, "Can I ask what you are doing?" When I explained, in as non-technical terms as I could, he asked me to, "explain that again." I did. My wife was quite amused. He walked around my truck, noted the call sign on the plates (in Texas it actually says "radio operator" in small print on the plates), and I explained the antenna on the back window was for transmit and the hand-held one was for receive. He looked perplexed, but then smiled and told me he had a call from someone saying I was waving a gun around out my window. My wife actually chuckled at this point. He asked me to pull further off the road and went on back to his cruiser/interceptor and drove off. My wife continued with quips like, "I can't wait to tell people about this."
I never did make any contacts on that pass (I've only had this radio 10 years, but I swear I still get confused on the menu choices), but managed 13 solid contacts today (AO-51 2201z) from the same spot on the South side of I-45 as I returned home from Dallas, including HK3Z, Aki, and CO6CBF, Hector. I was hoping to work some VEs to impress my wife, but I think they were all on royals watch for the weekend.
73, Jerry, K5OE