Ice storm 2011

[Halfcrazy]

Well we just got through a very localized Ice storm here in central Maine. It affected 3-4 counties and they are still cleaning up the mess. I have attached a picture of the 10ft Otherpower machine on my neighbors tower for your amusement. Now I just need a Ice melt feature for the turbine and Ham radio antennas 



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[niel]

do you mean to say your antennas are still up after all of that ice?
try operating to see if it'll heat up the ice some. i doubt that'll do any good though and watch for bad swr.

[Halfcrazy]

Niel
I was very fortunate I did not lose any antennas not even my 80 meter dipole that has 120ft of masons twine on one end holding it up. Here is a picture of the tower although it is hard to see the ice in this pic.

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[Volvo Farmer]

Holy mackerel. I'm glad I don't get weather like that!  Nice pic of the turbine!

[niel]

i guess i should ask you what you are using for your wires for the antennas.
btw, you'd built up a nice antenna farm. any more additions to it in the works?

[Halfcrazy]

Well I hope to swap the tower out for 160-180ft of commercial tower this summer and spread things out some. I do not know where I am headed for HF yet I would love to get some form of beam up but I am pretty happy with my dipoles maybe just re orient them? and of course add a 160 meter wire as well. I would like to get my diamond 510 back to the top I miss the big signal on 2 meters.

I am just using basic antenna wire I got from a Ham friend I do think it is hardened or steel cored or something I remember him saying it would not stretch like regular wire.

[niel]

i was contemplating getting some of that wire myself. do you know what gauge you got? i still have an antenna i designed that i'd like to try and put up. it is huge though as it is in the area of about 240ft long. those trees in back will be a problem, but i'm getting tired of my lowly present arrangement.
normally i'd be wanting to feed the antenna with 450 ohm ladder line, but i just had a bad experience with 2 of my security cameras blowing out. it seems the rf coupled into the cat5 from 10ft away and did them in. i think i'll try a single support with 4 or 5 seriesed 10ft fence sections to mount that antenna i made and i'll feed it with 75 ohm rg11 into a 1:1 balun and hope for the best. if i do this i believe i'll have an optimal direction and better takeoff angle toward you. i'm not sure what the noise or bcb interference will do with this arrangement. i figure if it doesn't work that i have the option of folding the wire back on itself to create an 80mtr folded dipole, but i'd need to purchase a 4:1 balun then. the height does make a big difference now doesn't it and i believe this could be a big part of my problem with hf.

[Halfcrazy]

It was 7 strand 14 gauge and I used masons line on the ends to tie it to trees and I can tell you the whole thing was bigger than 1 inch in diameter with Ice   Gotta love Maine we are supposed to get 2 inches of rain Friday.

[niel]

be glad it is only rain. it is already waterlogged around here, but we are to get snow on friday from the system that is dumping rain on us presently. so far it appears to be 2-5 inches coming. this season is above normal in snowfall with 51 inches so far, but is below last year's calamity of 76.9 inches.

update-they just issued a winter storm watch for up to friday evening.