Friends,
The roach poles coming off may have kept the tower up.
I have had to get EHU units repaired on two separate occasions. Vibration
can be a problem and besides damage to EHU units I have found the nuts
holding EHU units closed coming loose. I always use new nylock nuts and
these days will try to fit a second nut on as a lock nut. The SteppIR
antennas seem to require a careful inspection each year. My four element
SteppIR must be up eight years now. I have never lost a roach pole. The
antenna is at 24 meters or 80 feet easily clearing the hill on which it is
located. We get strong winds in Ireland. Seventy MPH gusts would not be
uncommon. Steady sixty mph winds are common in my location.
If you use a SteppIR then yearly maintenance should be routine. EUH units
do fail on occasion. Countering this, is a Yagi with fewer elements for
WARC with no traps and lower wind load. This is a big plus.
I sometimes think that the three elements SteppIR is the best overall
SteppIR antenna. It costs less; has a lower wind load; weighs less and on
the negative side does not lose all that much forward gain nor front to
back. Because of its smaller size you can more easily put it up at a good
height.
Today, I helped EI9FX install a rather big DB36. Oh how nice it is to have
three elements on forty meters. This is a big antenna which puts the fear
of God into me. I have lost two, two element forty meter beams over the
years.
73 Doug EI2CN
-----Original Message-----
From: TowerTalk [mailto:towertalk-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of
Mickey Baker
Sent: 27 August 2016 20:39
To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] SteppIR survivability?
Here a link to a photo of a neighbor of mine's 3 element steppir after
Hurricane Wilma in 2005, 105+ MPH winds. All the elements were retracted.
He replaced the fiberglass poles and was good to go.
He and I consider the poles frangiable and relatively inexpensive. The
folks at SteppIR were helpful and saw that he got replacements quickly and
inexpensively.
3-EL SteppIR After Wilma
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByOoWKip-wsTLXN2OGtSWXFPNm9vZzFkR01ZaVp0QX
IzdExJ/view?usp=sharing>
?Mickey N4MB?
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