[ADXA] Wind

[Steven Rutledge]

Rick, sorry to hear about your antenna issues.  Very sorry.  I agree 
that the extended period of high winds was the problem.  As I said 
earlier, it snapped my vertical off at the fiberglass insulator at the 
base off the antenna.  And I'm in the city surrounded by very large 
trees.  My stack on Rohn 45 is really not above the canopy but the 
torque I was witnessing scared me to death.  It made it through 
Hurricane Elvis with 115 mph straight-line winds but that only lasted 
about 15-20 minutes, even though it took down about half the oak trees 
in East Memphis.  I was in the direct path of that storm.  I think we 
lost electricity for about three weeks.  It was so bad I had to go to C6 
as soon as the airport opened.  :)))))  I have a T2X on my tower now.  
Spare Ham IV and T2X.  Everything seems to work.  I am noticing some new 
noise that I haven't heard before.  I was watching my guy wires very 
carefully.  The only thing I was concerned about was the torque on the 
stack.  Not pretty.

I'm sorry to hear about damage that occurred to other member's antennas 
and gear.

73,

Steve, N4JQQ

On 3/20/2025 10:31 PM, k5ur--- via ADXA wrote:
>
> Hi gang:
>
> Sorry to hear about some of the wind damage fellow ADXA’ers experienced.
>
> I’ve had high winds here on this hill before, especially living in 
> tornado alley, including tornados that have passed directly over 
> (losing one tower years ago) and one tornado on the ground in the 
> upper field that made the news, but I don’t ever recall having such 
> constant high and gusting wind for this long of a period, day and 
> night.It was brutal. Highest gust that I saw at my place was 51 mph.
>
> Here’s my run down.
>
> I kept going outside to check on the 200 foot tower since its guy 
> wires are a bit weathered and they really need replacing, but 
> thankfully it made it okay.I’ve been worried about those guy wires for 
> a couple of years. Then this morning I realized that my 15 meter beam 
> up 140 feet on another tower is not working so something has broken on 
> it. It looks fine so I suspect the wind has loosened something, 
> perhaps at the feedpoint or at the remote antenna switch. At my age, I 
> am absolutely not looking forward to climbing that high to 
> troubleshoot it.
>
> On another tower, I guess the ring gear broke in the rotor. It turns 
> about 10 degrees either way and stops. Then the same thing on the 
> fourth tower. The antenna seemed to be stuck and turning very slowly 
> so I had Holly go outside and watch it as I tried to turn it and she 
> yelled back “it’s making a horrible grinding noise.”Oh, goodie.
>
> In the 43 years I’ve had antennas up at this QTH, I have never lost a 
> rotor until now, and then to lose two at once tells me how bad the 
> torque must have been with the wind gusts. But, I guess that I can’t 
> complain. Those two rotators have been work horses. I’ve said before 
> that the item you get the most bang for your buck is the rotor, and 
> those two have been in service for decades. One was an old Ham-M that 
> I had back in my Russellville days. Geez, that goes back to the late 
> 60’s, early 70’s. I’ve done preventive maintenance on it a couple of 
> times over the years but it’s never broken until now.The other one is 
> over 40 years old, a Ham-IV.
>
> The other problem, thanks to the wind, is now I have horrible line 
> noise. The wind must have loosened some hardware up on the road 
> because I woke up to S9 line noise. It’s horrible, just horrible. And 
> I hate line noise.
>
> I figured I’d also have to fix some wire antennas due to broken limbs 
> falling on them, which is not uncommon for me after a windy storm. 
> This time the wire antennas made it okay including the 8 beverages 
> running through the woods. As many limbs that came down, I can’t 
> believe the wires survived, but they hung in there. (hi)
>
> 73,
>
> Rick – K5UR
>
>
>
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