*heh* My student and I did no less than 3 circuits with it down...the first time it glitched we thought "Huh...bit of a chuckhole out there". 2nd time, same place, student says "still there" and i thought to myself "Huh...yeah...and it shoulda moved by now"...3rd time, I said "ok, something else is going on...we're dropping the signal out there for some reason....OH ****!"

CGR's right...it's just a habit thing...as much as we get IN the habit of pulling the antenna up, we can get OUT of it even quicker. Even a day's worth of flying can do it to ya.

What I've also noticed is that it's not just us...it's EVERYONE at the field. Guys that, even a year ago, would have noticed your antenna and shouted "HEY FRED! ANTENNA!" just don't look any more...or if they do, they "know you fly 2.4" or whatever.

Along these same lines, I've seen a BUNCH of guys forget to "card up" when they switch to a 72mhz plane from flying 2.4...be it for some other plane they own, or instructing, or whatever. That's gonna bit SOMEBODY real soon, I fear.

We're all human...take one of our "points of focus" away, and we pretty easily slip into the lazy way of doing things. I've simply had to make myself go back to exactly the same "radio/frequency" part of my preflight routine that I ALWAYS used, and just saying "unnecessary" for items like cards and antennas when I'm on 2.4