When I arrived home from work last night, one of the first things I checked was the weather station display that hangs on the kitchen wall. There was no wind speed reading! It was still raining pretty hard, so I took my flashlight, went to the backdoor and focused the flashlight beam to as small and tight a cone of light as possible. I aimed it at the weather station to see the anemometer cups were gone! A piece of flying debris must have hit them and knocked them off! All night, you could hear the wind howling past the windows. It was unnerving at times.
When I awoke this morning, and we let Harold out to do his business, I noticed the wind had knocked the patio table over on its side. After getting dressed, I went out to correct that and to look for the anemometer cups. Luckily, they were only a few feet away in the grass and I was able to find them easily. I snapped them back onto the anemometer axle and raised the sensor back to its normal height.
So far this morning, there have been gusts in the 16 - 18 MPH range. The wind has calmed down a lot since last night, so I can only hazard a guess that we were getting wind gusts somewhere in the 30 MPH range.
Luckily, the antennas both survived the Autumn storm. I never have to worry about the Butternut. It survived Hurricane Sandy, so I know it's not going anywhere. I do worry about the W3EDP, though. A segment of the wire is routed haphazardly through the branches of the Maple in the backyard. I always worry that enough wind will cause one of the branches to sway enough to snap the wire. Not last night, though. I always say that will happen in the dead of winter during a blizzard!
In any event, I'm glad this storm is over and that I don't need to do any antenna repair this time around!
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
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