Leopard Creek Country Club, Malelane 

Berry and I were invited for the weekend to this exclusive golf club and associated residential resort. Apart from a beautiful golf course this resort is also build unobtrusively into the lowveld bush alongside the crododile river and Kruger game park. So nature certainly surrounds you. http://www.leopardcreek.co.za

I did not have much time for radio but I did set up my EFHW and K2 in order to check in to the ZS0AWA net on Saturday afternoon. I got the wire into a bush tree at the now familiar height of 5meters. I had the tuner dangling in the air at a height of about 2 meters. The K2 was on a large teak table. Interestingly I had a bit of a challenge getting the SWR down. I was only able to obtain about a 1.7:1 SWR. Also when I touched the tuner or the K2 there was definitely a variation in the SWR.

Having said that I checked into the net and received 579 report from om Andy ZS6ADY. Also on the net were ZS6AJY (Joburg), ZS5DM (Durban area) and ZS6JBJ (Witbank). All stations were able to copy my signal FB. I was unable to stay long on the net due to a need to attend to a discussion with other guests. I dismantled the station in 5 minutes after the net. The distance to Joburg being approximately 420Kms. Conditions on 40m were definitely better than the week before,

Observations:

1. Perform some tests on variations of SWR with tuner height above ground. This deployment experienced the same SWR variations that I remember seeing in the USA during similar deployments.
2. Find a way to easily describe to curious onlookers what I am up to. The idea of using morse code  appears to provide great opportunities for leg pulling...hi hi. The contest on Larry King live where 2 old timers beat a couple of high speed kids in sending CW/Text always gets attention.