I learned about atlatls and their application to ham radio today. First, they're not to be confused with Axolotl , one of the Characters from catscafe : An atlatl is a spear thrower according to Wikipedia. I vaguely remembered them from third through fifth grade social studies classes in Hobbs, NM, and Anthropology 101 at Ohio State. The reason I rememberd them is becuase of the degree of difficulty in stringing a half-wave diople on Mt. Davidson, W6/NC-423 . There's a pair of trees that look awesomre for just such an installation on 10 meters, but the branch of one of them is tantilizingly just out of reach when throwing a spool of butchers twine by hand. The tree in question: So, it usually takes upward of half an hour just to get the antenna and radio launched. But! Today, I figured out the answer, and it's—get ready for it—an atlatl. Placing the spool of twine on the end of a stick, and then throwing it resulted in the antenna line being ready to go on the first thro...