After last night's big wind storm, and 3 of the 4 people that I talked to
loosing antennas and towers to it, I just made up my mind that all my stuff
is gunna go!
I have one of the towers that were spoke of that is 72 feet crank-up, where
top section only has 4 or 5 inch face, luckily I have not put anything
other than a vhf yagi on it and never cranked it up.
One friend of mine had the identicle tower with a CL-33 on it and a pair of
22 foot boom 2 meter yagis above it. Now he only had 3 of the 4 sections
extended, but still disaster struck, I went to look at it tonight and there
is nothing but scrap metal left of any of it, broken booms, elements, and
tower everywhere not to mention the twisted and mangled steel.
Another friend lost a 7 element 10 meter yagi and a 12/17 dual
bander...again more or less same tower, however only bottom 2 sections with
mast out the top. CRASH! have not yet gone to survey the damage but from
reports, time to back up the truck and go to the dump!
The other gentelman I spoke of lost a tower and tribander.
NOW, none of the winds we experienced last night were bad compared to many
I hear of. They were reported in some areas as 65+mph, and the buddy with
the CL33 and twin VHF yagis seen 57mph on his weather station just a few
minutes before the "truck hit the house" that he described. However If that
is all it takes to destroy one of these, I AM NOT PLAYING!
As soon as the weather gets nice, down comes the tower, and up goes
something of beauty designed to take a windload of much greater than I can
put on it (hopefully).
So all of you with the old towers that you picked up at the yard sale down
the street for nothing, or payed good money for and has got you by for so
long. Please think about it! They were just not made to do what we do with
them.
We never get winds like that here! I don't think that I have ever seen
anything over 35-40, but last night took the cake, and the roof, and the
tower, and the antenna!
You know it is kinda ironic when he stood the tower and put the tribander
and Long boom yagis on it I remember him saying it is gunna take 70 mile an
hour winds to blow that son of a B**** down...guess what he was right!!!
Just my 2 cents, anyone got change???
Mike...NO6X
in Sunny Clifornia??????
Check out my home page at http://home.inreach.com/no6x
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