[OKDXA] Fwd: Fw: Ice, ARRL DX Contest, etc.

[Peter Laws]

Dunno if you guys know of K5GO or not.  Bad news over in NW Arkansas.
There is a link to pics as well.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dan Puckett <danp at uark.edu>
FYI...
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Stan Krueger k5as@
I may have some pics also...Stan
----- Original Message -----
From: Ron, K5XK

Here's the scoop from the big K5GO contest station about 75 miles east of here…


From: Stan Stockton
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 12:02 PM
Subject: Ice, ARRL DX Contest, etc.



Hello friends,



I just got internet service last night and have not looked at any
e-mails yet for the past week.



Here is a long e-mail that explains it all.



Looking at the situation with the glass half full approach, it could
have been a lot worse.  There were a few 20 meter elements that were
broken (4 out of 22, I think).



There were a few booms that were broken, and all were due to the truss
breaking the boom because it sagged underneath the boom - 40M boom
ends, front (3L) boom of 8 element at 150 feet, 6L 20M boom, booms on
10 element 15M.



(NOTE to K5UZ.  Looking at the picture of your 20M Yagi, the same
thing happened to yours.  I think that long boom Yagi will need to be
double trussed with the end truss near the end of the boom to survive
a big ice storm.)



I have loaded ten pictures that you can look at.  The first five were
all taken Tuesday late afternoon.  The last five were taken Wednesday
afternoon or later.



It started Monday afternoon and ended on Wednesday morning.  Between
midnight Monday and midnight Tuesday (January 27) Harrison had 3.76
inches of rain.  That was an all time record rainfall for that day -
not one drop of snow or ice but hard rain all day.  It continued until
something like 5:00AM Wednesday morning.  The problem of course was
that the temperature was about 25 degrees.



One of the pictures is of Kevin holding a tape measure up to one of
dozens of chunks of ice that fell off the towers.  This one came of
one of the elements on the back 5 element portion of the 8/8 at 150
feet.  The ice came from a 1 1/4 inch section of the element and has a
radial dimension of 2 1/8 inches.  I believe the ice on the bottom of
the element would have been at least 1.5 inches for a total diameter
of almost 5 inches.  All but one element of the five on that boom
survived - amazing.



A lesson that was finally learned and should have been learned long
ago given the same thing happened to the original elements on the 40M
Yagi:



Long booms either need to be trussed two times on either side or the
truss needs to be very high above the boom.  The boom failures were
all as a result of a single boom-truss loading with so much ice they
sagged down such that they were pulling the booms down instead of
holding them up.  The trusses are of no value for wind and are there
only to hold up the boom with ice.  If not done correctly, they will
hurt you instead of help.



Here is what we are planning.  Kevin and I have already taken down the
6 element 20M Yagi at 70 feet and the 5 element portion of the 8/8
that was at 150 feet.  I have ordered the icephoebic paint since the
40M elements and boom pieces did not accumulate much ice at all and
all those elements look perfect from a view at ground level.  Have
also ordered over 1000 feet of aluminum tubing.  We will make new 20M
elements that are as good or better than all those that survived and
in addition paint them with the paint that sheds ice.  We plan to also
paint the booms for the top 8 element and the 6 element 20M antennas.
There will be two points of trussing on either side of the 60 foot
boom 20M Yagi and even though the boom survived on the 5 element
portion of the 8/8 at 150 feet, it will either be raised or go out
farther and be tightened so there is no sag.  There will not be any
80M wire elements hanging from the ends of those booms and perhaps
never hanging from any portion of the booms.



Given that the paint worked and the 40M elements did not have any
problem with the ice, I think the antenna would have been without any
damage if the boom ends were not even trussed.  Looking at the sag in
guy wires, power lines, etc. with those wires measuring over 3 inches
in diameter, we cannot have a truss that is 55 feet long.  That big
Phillystran sagged down below the boom and broke the 3.5 inch tubing
just outside the 45G.  I am still thinking about options for the 40M
antenna including adding 10 feet of 45G to either end, double trussing
the 45G part and only having about 10-12 feet of 3.5 inch stuff
instead of 22 feet on either end. If the end is trussed it will come
back to the 45G and not be one truss line that goes all the way back
to the 55G in the center of the antenna.



We plan to make new elements for the top 8 element 20M and 6 element
20M Yagi antennas, paint the elements and booms and do whatever we
think is necessary so we will not have to worry about ice.  We will
need to take down the 3 element portion of the top 8/8 antenna and
replace the boom and use the new elements.  Even though this one is
light, it may be a bigger challenge than the other one because of the
condition of the boom.  We will probably put up the top 8 element
antenna manually.  The glass is half full in that if they had been
painted I am sure they would have survived the worst ice storm we have
had here in perhaps the last 50 years or more.



Kevin is going to make a temporary 3 element 40 that will be on a
fairly short 45G boom (three sections) using stuff we have laying
around from other disasters.    When the 3 element 40 is ready (2-4
weeks from now), we will schedule a time to have the crane come to
take down the big one and put up the 3 element one.  The big one will
go back up at our leisure in nice weather.



There is too much work to do for us to try to work the ARRL Contest.
Normally I would have been up there every night starting about a week
ago trying to get things ready.  All the beverages would be broken
down from the ice and the whole situation is a mess.



During the few days following the problem, there were a lot of
emotions regarding all this.  Every thought occurred in our minds -
start over with different location that doesn't get the extremes we
have on top of the mountain, smaller station (lower 8 element 20M Yagi
at 75 feet survived with no damage - also amazing when power poles
were snapping and there appears to be significantly more ice than the
Northeast got a month or two ago).



A day or two later I am thinking about two 60 foot towers spaced about
45 feet either side of the 40 meter tower in line to about 30 degrees.
 A 24 foot boom on one with two elements, a 27 foot boom on the
existing 40M with two elements and a single element on the NE tower
will give us 5/5 on 40 when beaming Europe and be a really good SS
antenna for the Northeast.  I figure you only live once and I am not
ready to stop trying to make some of these dreams become reality.



The pictures are at http://photobucket.com/k5go Click on each picture
to enlarge it.  I think I wrote something on each one which will be
shown.



Now I guess I will go read my business related e-mails from the last week.



73...Stan, K5GO








-- 
Peter Laws | N5UWY | plaws plaws net | Travel by Train!