[ADXA] Wind

Fri Mar 21 21:30:45 EDT 2025

 Thanks, Stan. Good points to consider.
Joel has been all over me for years to upgrade my station and antennas. He was quite adamant it be done. I think he first called it the "K5UR 2020" plan and now here it is 5 years later. He's offered to help a thousand times, which I really appreciate, but I just haven't done it. Too busy is the main excuse. (hi)
When I was writing about the wind in that earlier email, I faileded to mention that we've had the second floor of our house blown away by a tornado twice. Like I said, it's a wonder I haven't experienced more damage to the antennas and towers over the years.
73,Rick - K5UR

    On Friday, March 21, 2025 at 08:16:39 AM CDT, Stan Stockton <wa5rtg at gmail.com> wrote:   

 Rick,
I have no idea what you have down there.  I think it’s state secret information. 😃
15 years ago I would have not even considered multi-band antennas especially with traps and other loading methods.  Today, due to very accurate computer design, you can build or buy multi-band antennas with full sized elements that work every bit as well as mono-banders.
As a backup or to replace mono-banders as they eventually fail, I would suggest putting up one 36 foot tribander on one tower and a 17/12 Yagi on another tower.  The height would depend on terrain.  
You will still be the King of the bands, and I think you might be surprised as to how they compare to whatever you have now.  The 36 footer will probably have 4 elements on 20, 5 on 15 and 7-8 elements on 10.  Gain will be about 9.5, 10.5 and 11.5 on 20/15/10 with over 20 dB F/R across the entire bands. Build them or modify the elements to withstand about 120 mph.  I think the Yaesu 2800 is a pretty good rotator.  There are probably other, more expensive ones, that are better.
I have a recording made at N2QV with four 36 foot tri-banders at 60, 90, 120, 150 feet of a CW EME signal on 20 meters. FT8 sure, but Q5 CW - that’s impressive.
73..Stan

On Mar 20, 2025, at 10:31 PM, k5ur--- via ADXA <adxa at mailman.qth.net> wrote:

Hi gang:

Sorry to hear about some of the wind damage fellow ADXA’ersexperienced. 
I’ve had high winds here on this hill before, especially livingin tornado alley, including tornados that have passed directly over (losing one tower yearsago) and one tornado on the ground in the upper field that made the news, but Idon’t ever recall having such constant high and gusting wind for this long of aperiod, day and night.  It was brutal. Highestgust 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 sinceits guy wires are a bit weathered and they really need replacing, but thankfullyit made it okay.  I’ve been worried aboutthose guy wires for a couple of years. Then this morning I realized that my 15meter beam up 140 feet on another tower is not working so something has brokenon it. It looks fine so I suspect the wind has loosened something, perhaps atthe feedpoint or at the remote antenna switch.  At my age, I am absolutely not looking forwardto climbing that high to troubleshoot it.

On another tower, I guess the ring gear broke in the rotor. Itturns 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 watchit as I tried to turn it and she yelled back “it’s making a horrible grindingnoise.”  Oh, goodie. 

In the 43 years I’ve had antennas up at this QTH, I havenever lost a rotor until now, and then to lose two at once tells me how bad thetorque 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 getthe most bang for your buck is the rotor, and those two have been in service fordecades. 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 maintenanceon 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 horribleline noise. The wind must have loosened some hardware up on the road because I wokeup 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 brokenlimbs falling on them, which is not uncommon for me after a windy storm.  This time the wire antennas made it okayincluding the 8 beverages running through the woods.  As many limbs that came down, I can’t believe thewires survived, but they hung in there. (hi)

73,

Rick – K5UR

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