A tractor?  How big is your new yard??

Re the CEO - See, should'a moved to Mass and worked in *his* office.  That'da gotten you a new policy pretty quickly!

Yes, at this point I need either a lawn tractor or a whole lot of spare time and energy.  I bought a house on a 1 acre lot.  This is the view from my deck:

And that's just the backyard.  There's more out front.

replace it with astroturf?

or this: http://www.robomow.com/en-USA/

Thanks for the brilliant ideas, but I've already ordered a John Deere, mainly for street cred with the rednecks on my wife's side of the family.  I know the low end Deeres aren't anything like the ones used in commercial applications, but they're still decent machines.

Post videos!!!

Sat Aug 09 2014 11:33:02 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored

Yes, at this point I need either a lawn tractor or a whole lot of spare time and energy.  I bought a house on a 1 acre lot.  This is the view from my deck:

And that's just the backyard.  There's more out front.

Nice yard! Idea time....

If you don't already have one, get a ham license. You have room in that yard for a modest but very usable antenna "farm." I'm "imagining" a 70 ft tower in the center of the yard (self supporting to eliminate the need for guy wires) with a multi-band HF beam and above that a 6 meter yagi, a 2 meter yagi, and a 2 meter vertical at the very top for "ham CB"... mmmm... two meter FM.

Rip out the grass to form a 30-ft radius circle with the tower in the center, and replace with 1 to 2 inch white stone, or even "largish" gravel.

You could probably "finance" most of that by returning that John Deere "tractor" thingee. <evil grin>

Of course, knowing New York "neighborhoods" you are probably drowning in Deed Covenants and Restrictions. But not to worry, those are about to be overturned in favor of amateur radio antennas by Federal court actions and/or the Amateur Radio Parity Act which will be passed within the next 2 years regardless of which "party" thinks they "control" the federal legislative process. Hams have a track record of getting things done at the federal level. It's truly amazing what politicians will do when they hear "if this doesn't happen, we'll just 'not be there' the next time you have a disaster that takes out your comm-systems'..." <another evil grin>

Have fun with your new Antenna Farm !!!!!

--K2NE

There's not much perspective on that shot now that I'm looking at it again.  The area pictured is about half an acre.  Out front there's about another quarter acre of lawn and then some woods between that and the street, with a little babbling brook running through it.  It's not big by rural standards, but big enough that I'm not going to kill myself trying to maintain it with a push mower.

The dead mower went out on the curb last night.  I've now been through our first "bulk pickup day" since moving into this town.  My neighbor was right -- not much gets picked up by the garbage men after the scrappers and scavengers are done.  The night before bulk pickup day, people from out of town (at least I suspect they're from out of town) troll the neighborhoods looking for large metallic objects to pick up and sell as scrap metal.  I put out a bunch of metal poles from an old trampoline around 7:00.  Within 20 minutes there was a scrapper going through the pile.  Good for him, I thought, not only recycling but actually earning some money in the process.  I'd have gone up there and bitched at him if I'd known that he was separating the metal from the non-metal (all the padding around the poles) and leaving the non-metal strewn about at the curb for me to clean up a second time.

By the time I came back outside after dinner (yeah, we eat late at my house) the scrappers had taken the old lawnmower and a couple of old rackmount computer cases I'd left out.

Sounds beautiful, IGGY - congrats again.

Oh, and clearly, this year the party should be at your house.  :-)

I agree with vince-q.  That is ample clearing for at lest a long wire antenna for some fine SWLing.  Shame to let it go to waste as just another grassy area.