For our twentieth anniversary, Jan and I decided to go to Montecito-Sequoia Lodge, which is on the edge of the Sequoia National Park.  We packed "light" for the trip, with the 897D, Buddipole, and one Optima Blue Top battery.  We brought along the homebrew TeePeeVee as a backup.  After a quick recon of the area, we chose a slushy, unmarked corner of the parking lot because it would have little traffic and had some nearby natural supports (trees).  The BP went up on its mast in a dipole configuration in short order, and within about twenty minutes or so, WA6WTF/P was on the air.  For about ten minutes before a nice gust of wind brought the BP crashing down.

I'd guyed it in two places and had been especially careful to guy it on the windward side.  Unfortunately, my slipknot had slipped, and the end result was a truly tremendous bang, one broken whip, and one badly bent.  Jan thought we were off the air, but I always have spare parts, having already been inducted into the Busted Whip Society a few years ago.  Some careful tweaking of the bent whip showed that it was still serviceable, although no longer entirely collapsible.  I adjusted the guying and added a third point just in case, and within fifteen minutes or so, we were operational again.  Just in time for 20m to snap in and out like a worn rubber band and noisy as well.

Jan called CQ for awhile and tried to break in on a couple of ragchews just to get a signal report, to no avail.  We swapped out and I called CQ in a couple of spots with no luck.  Italy was booming in, calling for West Coast, but the guys in the Midwest were so excited that they kept going back to him, and there were a lot of them between me and Italy!  A couple of JAs were having a lengthy chat in Japanese.  Hawaii popped up in a couple of ragchews.  So it was fun listening, at least.  Just when I was going into the stupor that comes with unsuccessfully calling CQ, an operator popped up, followed by two more, and I even got a "great" signal report, 5/9 and 20 over, in Iowa.   Not bad for 100w and a bent whip.  The band was popping in and out, and it was time to pack up for dinner at the lodge, so the score for less than an hour of  "real" operating time was three QSOs. 

Lessons learned: there's a reason for the three-points of the three-point guying system.  And slipknots can be...slippery.