Windy!

Sunday night we had a cold front come through. We had a severe thunderstorm watch in effect until 8:45 PM but none materialized. We did get some, brief heavy rain. The major effect was gusty winds. It was windy all night and you could hear it howling past the second floor windows of our house. When I awoke in the morning, my weather station informed me that we had some gusts between 25 and 30 MPH.

Good test for new mast for the W3EDP.  It did not come down - the mast or the antenna.

BUT ......... there's always a "but", isn't there?

When I let Harold out of the house Monday morning to do what dogs do, I noticed the wire was lower than where I had left it Sunday afternoon. In anticipation of putting another mast section up next weekend, I did not attach the anchor end of the antenna rope to the fence on the opposite side of the lawn securely enough. Well, actually I did as the wire didn't come totally loose to the point of laying down on the ground. A hastily tied secondary knot intended to take up some anchor rope slack slipped and the wire is now drooping. In fact, the wind blew the wire downward onto the roof of the addition at the back of the house where it snagged on a shingle edge. Drat!

This happened once before when the antenna was up in Ol' Mapley and a limb snapped causing the wire to "free up" from a meandering route amongst twigs and branches a bit.  I will do what I did last time (quite successfully). I will use the Jackite as my extended hand and I will gently move the wire away from the shingle, up over a small vent pipe and back up into free space - all without my feet leaving good Ol' Mom Earth.

Did I ever mention how deathly phobic I am of ladders?  Great for being a Ham, huh?  I fell off the top of a 6 foot ladder back when I was in 2nd Grade. That experience left me avoiding ladders like the plague if at all possible. My palms get sweaty just thinking about them. I will climb one if it's absolutely necessary. It's not something that's near and dear to my heart, though.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!