[OKDXA] Ice Storm

[Kim Elmore]

At my QTH, about 7 mi E of Norman and about 1.5 mi NE of K9KK, all 
antennas (Cushcraft 40CD2, and DW3, KLM KT34A, 2m/70 cm corner 
reflector, VHF/UHF discone, F12 Sigma 80 OCF vertical dipole and K9AY 
rx loops) are still up, but looking mighty droopy. I have about 3/4" 
if ice on everything. I upgraded the boom on the 40CD2 to 0.124" wall 
thickness and a single piece, and I can see some droop in it. 
Everything still rotates. We had may an inch of sleet, topped by 
about 7 in of snow.  My shunt-fed tower still works fine on 160, even 
with 3/4" to 1" of ice on the shunt feed.

About the only thing that tunes properly is the 160 antenna. The 
dielectric loading has made all of the rest appear electrically much 
longer than they do without the ice. During the sleet I experienced 
some amazing precipitation static -- about S9. No power failures 
here, but we're pretty well immune to those because when we built the 
house, we also installed a 13 kW whole-house generator that runs on 
natural gas.

Kim N5OP