Local weather and its impact on antennas and QTH 🙂
Update 11.Feb.2025 - the latest storm
It is not the first storm, nor the last. However, it brought some damage and food for thoughts.
My oldest Yagi - 6-ele monoband OWA for 10 meters - broke its boom during the latest storm
I believe, it is a metal fatigue. It bent well under the wind and survived previously. But eventually, it broke. The boom is very thin – 30x30mm… I wouldn’t guess now, that it would stay long. But it survived for 2 years, most likely, because of its modest height – just 10 meters above the ground.
It doesn’t look like particularly difficult to repair. So, I hope to find time in 1-2 weeks. Lately, I have been using its sister installed on the 31-meter height anyway as a far more capable antenna.
Structural Deformation After High Winds
Most antennas of the 42-meter tower have been heavily beaten and bent.
The good part, the tower didn’t fell, unlike walls on the farm 🙂
The bad part, I am scratching my head on how to bring the antennas without the crane, fix them and bring them back… It is a near-term task … there are some ideas … but the crane is so much easier … but 500-USD per day – two times to call (put the antennas down and then put them back) … – I really don’t think there would be enough time to fix, measure, and place them back … unless you built another set of antennas, which is also both expensive and lengthy … By the way, all antennas are homebrew, of course.
Other short comment:
- 14-mm diameter tubes are clearly not enough for the 5-ele OWA 12-meter Yagi, which is a bit a surprise because similarly-sized H-shape on 10-meter survived well. It means that the H-shape is significantly stronger, because the only bent element on the 10-meter 6-ele OWA Yagi was also not with H-shape but a regular tube and it also bent 45 degrees under the wind
- 25-mm tube is still not enough for the 20-meter Yagi. It bent less, but still bent. And it lost of of the sections of the reflector… – so, it become lose over time… vibration, I assume. Interesting … there must be something sticky to keep them together… – I don’t want to drill
- 25mm is enough for the 15-meter antenna with a 5-meter boom. The only unbent antenna. However, it is still damaged. Its resonance moved to 20.2 MHz … – it is very unclear how and why … – maybe, it is touching something … – looks like impossible but still ..
- 25-mm tube is not enough 18-meter band either … so, it looks like the starting diameter for all of them must be 32mm … well, I tried to do a 40-meter Yagi with 32-mm tubes :-))) They survived, by the way, because they had 1-2-mm Kevlar lines supporting. However, the boom was broken in half in that case – sooner then the elements 🙂
- Two layers of guying is sufficient for a 1/4-wave vertical for 40 meters. Bent but not broken
Walls Have Fallen
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Until two days ago, this unfinished building had four walls … now, it is even more unfinished – it has 2.5 walls 🙂
Two walls just have fallen. Crazy!
Blocks Enjoyed Flying
These are 30-40 kg blocks. High surface area without doubts. But they have flown over the fence and flew several meters from the area where they were stored.
It is good that I wasn’t there when this has been happening.
Local Electricity Grid and Transformer Broke
Everything is old here … it looks like from the Soviet time but it was old then already. So, it breaks just because it is old.
The transformer broke. I believe, it is a three phase 10 kV to 220V transformer, but I I am not sure. What I am sure, that one of the phases gives constant sparks, which are bright at and audible, and produces S9+20 noise instead of typical S5-7 on 40m. The same level of noise on 80m and 160m but the other noise (atmosphere + human-produced) is S7-8 and S8-9 respectively.
The last time I waited for 1-2 weeks the transformer to be repaired. Is is still possible to operate upper bands, particularly, in FT8, because the antennas are directional and relatively far and because bands are higher. However, lower bands with non-directional verticals are terribly affected and not DXing is possible.
One of Guys Became Loose
One of the guys on the top orbital bearing became loose… I don’t know when and how it happened. Maybe, it was the wind and vibration … May be, somebody “helped”, because it is anchored next to the road …
I just accidentally noticed that the mast is somehow more bent on the top. And then I noticed the missing guy.
It is scary. Broken or bent antennas is bad. But the fallen tower is many times more damaging.
Luckily, I easily returned the loose guy back. But I will replace the ring-and-hook turnbuckles on all guys with two-ring turnbuckles. They are more difficult to handle but I don’t want to have loose guys on the 42-meter tower with 5-6 antennas on them … Or me on the tower, though, I tend to check the setup before climbing … but I may be too lazy or busy some day. No need to give a chance for such a risk.
