Summer finally showed up in Southern New England on July 15.

The Ides of July was the first day that I've run the air conditioner this season. Spring was a no-show this year and for the first time in my life, I actually ran my furnace a few times in June to warm things up.

Now that the Sun is finally warming things up here, let's cool down a bit and visit the opposite side of the Earth where it is one month into winter, but where the Sun plays an important part of running the day-to-day operations of a ham radio station VK5SW.

Rob Norman's ham radio station is in Morgan, about 90 miles northeast of Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia, placing it deep in The Bush. The bad news is that there is no source of electricity near VK5SW, but the good news is that there is no power line interference.

Rob depends on the Sun to power his station and his Web site describes how he does that, as well as other details about his ham radio station, his life, his neighborhood and his neighbors (accompanied by lots of great photos).

Until next time, keep on surfin'!

Editor's note: Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, would like to get off the grid real soon now. To contact Stan, send him e-mail or add comments to his blog. By the way, every installment of Surfin' is indexed here, so go look it up.

Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor