It’s funny how many antennas I notice now that I’m in the hobby. They were always there, of course, but I did not really see them. Now they jump out at me everywhere: on cars, rooftops, towers, streetlights, utility poles, city landmarks, and in every little device we carry around in our pockets.

Some are tiny GHz antennas hidden inside phones and Wi-Fi gear. Some are rubber duckies on walkie talkies and other handhelds. Some are TV antennas, some are repeater antennas, some are cellular panels, some are phased arrays quietly blasting energy through the air without moving at all. And then there are the big HF antennas, long wires and beams and verticals, reaching out by using the planet and sky as part of their systems.

The part that gets me is that an antenna can seem like such a simple thing, just a wire of some length and uninteresting shape, but it is also a kind of interface with the invisible. Pure dark magic. A piece of metal, cut to the right size, bent into the right way, and placed in the right spot, becomes a door into an invisible world around us.

If only we could see RF, the world would be so bright!

73, K1FRX out.