A Ham Radio Operator's Dreammobile

(Click image above to view licensing information at Getty Images)

One of the more awesome things that the Center for Severe Weather Research (the group that owns all those "Doppler on Wheels" trucks you see on the Discovery Channel) acquired this year was a truly ginormous mobile retractable antenna. Installed on the back of DOW 6, this antenna rises some 50+ feet in the air. Once raised, it acts as a "repeater" essentially, a large antenna that listens for things that Vortex 2 chasers transmit with their smaller radios, then rebroadcasts them at a much higher power with a much larger antenna, meaning that V2 chasers can talk to each other on the radio even if they're almost 50 miles away. It seems like the kind of thing that should belong to the military or to some HAM radio fan who won the lottery. When you consider that the full-sized semi cab also has a humongous Doppler Radar dish mounted on the back, a crew cab with a swivel chair and a four-monitor workstation, wireless internet, and is linked into a network of radio transponders tied to GPS satellites that allow a graphical layout of where all Vortex 2 units are at all times, this thing is pretty much the most tricked out Nerdmobile in the history of the Geek species.

By the way, speaking of the Discovery Channel -- the new season of Storm Chasers starts quite soon -- October 11th! Here's a preview video of the season to come:


(the above video is Copyright the Discovery Channel.)

The filming crew invested a lot more resources this year, so I suspect that it'll be an awesome season. I think I might have a cameo appearance in it, too, considering they asked me to sign a model release -- I just hope and pray I don't come off like a complete jackass. :) I tried real hard not to walk into anyone's camera shots, but they just had so dang many cameras and I tend to completely lose track of where I am when I'm composing a shot...