[Elecraft] Ice on dipole under snow under ice

[Louandzip]

 I imagine lying on the roof would usually be fine, except for being a little lower.  At a couple of different QTHs I had my antennas in the attic;  40-10m dipoles, 6m and 2m loops.  These were wood roofs with cedar shakes or asphalt shingles.  They all worked well when the roof was dry.  Wet definitely affected the SWR.  A wet roof has a lot more contaminants in the water making it more conductive than snow or pristine rainwater ice.  

At one point I had the shingles replaced.  The dipole SWR was way off from what it had been.  It turned out the new building code required metal edging under the shingles at the perimeter of the roof. 



    On Wednesday, December 16, 2020, 7:18:56 AM MST, David Haines <dhaines at bates.edu> wrote:  
 
 Fortunately the wire is caught under snow and ice on a timber frame 
building with asphalt shingles.  It seems to be working just fine. Even 
better than before, the dipole no longer can swing in the wind!
Maybe the next antenna should just lie on the roof!

I really appreciate "Instead of "shouldn't work," ask "what's the 
probability that it will work?"  Spoken like a true engineer who knows 
how to solve problems!

david
KC1DNY in Maine, awaiting another snow storm to put 7 more inches of 
protection on my dipole.

On 12/15/2020 2:23 PM, Fred Jensen wrote:
> Snow and/or natural ice that fell from the sky is barely conductive if 
> at all and likely has zero effect.  All or part of your antenna laying 
> on the ground will sure lower it's radiating efficiency [although 
> maybe not as much as you might think], but HF radio is sometimes 
> magic.  Like quantum mechanics, it's all probabilities. Instead of 
> "shouldn't work," ask "what's the probability that it will work?" 😁
>
> 73,
>
> Fred ["Skip"] K6DGW
> Sparks NV DM09dn
> Washoe County
>
> On 12/15/2020 9:45 AM, David Haines wrote:
>> Update:
>>
>> With one-quarter of one leg of the dipole still under ice, I got a 
>> reception report from PSKReporter on FT8 with 2 watts to Italy. That 
>> shouldn't work, should it?  Maybe the ice doesn't matter?
>>
>> KD5VXH recalled a discussion in QST on this very subject, where 400W 
>> AM melted the ice on one leg of the dipole (fed by coax), but not the 
>> other.
>> '
>> You can follow the controversy in May and July 1960 letters in QST!
>>
>> david
>> KC1DNY
>>
>
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