#*&!*$@

Friday night into Saturday, we received about 3 inches (7.5 cm) of snow.  And unfortunately, it was the wet heavy stuff. And much to my dismay, my 88' EDZ was a casualty.  It's still up in the tree, and it still loads up, but the support line snapped and it's down to about the 20 foot (6 Meters) level now at highest, and the one leg is extremely droopy! Luckily, a branch on the way down caught it, so I am not completely without it, but I am sure the performance had degraded somewhat.

I am taking a couple of leftover-from-last-year vacation days off from work at the end of this week, and was planning on rectifying this situation. However, Mother Nature may be throwing us an additional 1 - 2 feet (30 - 60cm) of snow at us tonight through Tuesday. So I may not be able to do anything about this problem until Spring - or at least until a majority of the snow melts.

The good news is that I use the Butternut about 90% of the time. anyway; and with fingers crossed, it's still running like a champ! But just knowing that my "backup" is now compromised is an annoyance.

UPDATE: Talking with my buddy, Bob W3BBO, a good idea popped into my head. This coming weekend, I am going to attempt to disconnect the coax from the EDZ, walk it back along the house and connect it to the W3EDP. That wire is still secure at the 30 foot level. That will hopefully result in a wire antenna that works well.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!