G'day Earl
Looks like Murphy and high winds were a big factor in the SP.
After I went QRT at VK6VZ at about 1300Z after working exactly one station
- a VK6! - since sunset owing to the S9+ QRN, the wind at the lighthouse
got up to about 40 knots. As I lay in my sleeping bag, I could hear the
winds lashing the antenna feeders against the lighthouse walls...
When my friend Phil VK6APH got up the next morning, he went outside to
inspect the damage. I could hear him laughing and saying we had indeed
lost an antenna and to come and look.
When I got outside, I could see both the wire vertical and inverted vees
were surprisingly intact. However, the inverted vee feeder had whipped
across the bonnet of his car in the high winds and neatly sliced the MW
telescopic vertical off at the base...
Vy 73,
Steve, VK6VZ
K6SE wrote:
>Then Murphy struck in the worst possible way. After about 1-1/2 hours
>into the contest, the SWR on the balloon-supported vertical went up to as
>high as 3:1 (it normally is about 1.2:1). I took off the headphones and
>the reason was obvious -- it was windy and the antenna was probably far
>from vertical!
>
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