As you can see, all of the prognosticators predicting an early Spring here in North Carolina now have egg on their face and can go fly a kite as far as I'm concerned. What's worse, last night's heavy and wet snowfall managed to bring down my 'new' hexbeam.
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| From N4EMG: CQ from North Carolina |
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| From N4EMG: CQ from North Carolina |
Actually, the antenna would have made it through the storm just fine, it was a failure of the tubing I used to connect the center post to the rotor - you can see it bent over in the pictures. Otherwise, the only part of the antenna that broke was one spreader that obviously couldn't take the stress when the whole thing tipped over.
I decided to drop it down to the ground instead of leaving it hanging. It looks much worse than it really is, lying there in a twisted clump. A little repair of the broken spreader and some patience restringing the wires and I think it'll be good as new.
Note to self: Don't be such a cheapskate with the center post support next time! I got lucky this time.
4 comments:
Ed,
My very best to you, goodness, it seems like lots of antennas are taking big snow hits this season. I hope all turns out and you're back on the air as soon as possible.
73
Scot, KA3DRR
I'm sorry to read that.
I'm a happy user of traffie's HEXBEAM for about 5 years and no trouble at all fortunately.
I hope Spring will come soon at your QTH.
CU ON AIR AND HPE 2-WAY HEX QSO.
73
Atsu, JE1TRV
Thanks for the well-wishes Scot and Atsu. What I can say is that it wasn't a defect or a fault with the antenna itself. It was a poor choice on my behalf to use a thin-walled aluminum piece to mount the rotor to the centerpole. It had held up to some relatively high winds prior to this, but the combined extra weight of the snow and ice, along with the wind caused it to fail this time. I was also surprised at the amount of ice and snow that built up on the wires themselves. I wonder if spraying silicon on them would help in the future?
73 Ed
Hi, Ed
Perhaps a fine silicon coating as an adhesion answer to the snow. We use silicon based products as a water repellent/corrosion protectant at work.
73
Scot, KA3DRR
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