[GCARC] Follow Up Damage Report

[Tony Starr]

W2MMD Damage Follow Up Report.

I arrived at the clubhouse on Thursday afternoon, following a series of
detours and negotiating with local police for access to closed roads. That
part worked out rather well actually.  The damage is pretty much as I saw
from the Facetime videos from W2RAD with NJ2S. I attempted to assess the
damage for a possible work party this weekend, and later I was joined by
Charlie, N2SRQ, Frank N3PUU, and John, K2QA, who helped me save the 7
element 6 meter beam which was dangling upside down from the bent over
mast.  Later, Bob KD2GFL arrived and gave us some insight into the events
of Wednesday evening.

Overall, I have to say that we are very lucky to have only suffered antenna
damage. Our mobile home building did surprisingly well and is almost 100%
intact. We basically only need to put the skirting back that blew off and
maybe fix a roof shingle or two. That is it.  The equipment inside stayed
safe and dry, and the building stayed on its foundation blocks.  This is a
good thing. The antennas and towers of course are probably not easily
salvaged, but who knows what we might be able to do. We will probably be
able to replace the hardware with similar, if not exactly equal stuff. Best
case, we replace it with something better, and worst case something not
quite as good, but something that will work. We will see.

I am also very interested in finding out what kind of insurance coverage we
might have that could possibly assist us in replacing the antennas and
towers. If anyone has any expertise in this area, please contact me ASAP.
It has also been suggested that we start a fund drive within the club, or
even outside the club, maybe using a Go Fund Me page. I will be looking
into this. In the meantime, if anyone wants to make a donation toward this
effort, I would certainly encourage you to do so. We should have a PayPal
account that we use for dues, or you can just send a check to our PO Box in
Pitman.

While we sort out what we need to do to get our antennas and towers
replaced, I would not be opposed to putting up some temporary antennas to
get our station back on the air. I have a four element 20m beam that I
would offer, and could make a couple of wire dipoles.  If anyone has any
suggestions or something to offer, please email me and let me know. We have
a lot of Field Day experience with antennas, so there is no reason why
W2MMD should be off the air while we work on getting new antennas up.  The
DX season is short, so we should try really hard not to miss it.

Finally, we are planning a work party for Saturday morning at 0900 hours,
so if any of you can make it, please be there, and bring work gloves.  73
and thanks for all of your support in this most difficult time. We WILL get
through this!

Tony Starr K3TS
President GCARC