A visitor to a blog on the Isthmus Web site late last week mentioned a home on Mineral Point Road near Queen of Peace School, and asked: "What's up with the GIGANTIC aerial antenna at that house? Anyone else seen it?"
A reader passed the question along to me, which provides an opportunity to introduce Ralph Henes, 65, a Madison native who attended Queen of Peace School years ago and now lives nearby, at the corner of Mineral Point and South Owen Drive, in that house with the GIGANTIC aerial antenna.
The timing of the introduction is pretty good, because this year not only is Henes celebrating his 50th year as a ham radio operator, but it is 10 years since he astutely engineered a deal with a cellular phone company to have a cell tower put in his backyard, at the company's expense, with Henes's ham antenna on top.
He also got city approval for the whole thing, which given the way things usually work in Madison, should qualify Henes for some kind of honorary Nobel Prize in negotiation. ...
