Dave,
I feel your pain. I have had similar situations in Western, CT in 2011,
2012 and then again in 2014.
During CQWWSSB in 2011 we got a freak snowstorm starting with temps at
34F and then falling to 19F overnight - heavy wet snow at 4" - 5" per
our took out thousands of trees in full leaf and trashed hundreds of
power lines and utility poles. It took many dozens of line crews from
Ohio to ME to South Carolina, 2 weeks to restore all power. I had no
power for 9 days. No antennas got repaired that Winter.
In 2012 we had two hurricanes, one in August, (antennas were repaired)
and then came Hurricane Irene the Sunday evening of CQWWSSB, with its
screaming 120 mph wind gusts that destroyed most of our town
communications infrastructure. Hundreds of utility poles, power lines
and trees were destroyed just in my area of the the town. 171 roads in
Newtown, CT were completely or partially blocked. 98% of Newtown, CT
lost power. I had to chainsaw 15 trees that had fallen across my
driveway literally trapping us here until they were all cut and moved.
The cable/phone and internet lines were literally ripped off all the
power poles the entire length of my 550' driveway. We had no power for
9 days until the final transformer was replaced on a pole above my
driveway on November 7th during another snowstorm that dropped another
9" of snow. All the wire antennas were down and not repaired that Winter
for critical health reasons, the passing of my mother as well as the
Sandy Hook massacre on December 14th.
And then in 2014, we got 61" of snow in 3 weeks with subzero temps
in-between ensuring that almost nothing melted. One night in 5 hours we
got 24" of snow and with 42" of snow on the ground it was impossible to
get to the woods. I spent all of Martin Luther King day shoveling snow
off the roofs of my house so that it would not collapse. Again, no
antennas got fixed that winter. I had given up on Beverages years
before due to the combination of a Deer Tick explosion and the dense
forest raining branches and trees all over the beverages with every wind
storm.
Western CT in New England is a rough place to live. Thank goodness we
don't get the insane cold of Northern ME.
Some years you just have to "let it go" and wait until Spring to put
your station back together. I learned not to bother to fix my wire
antennas until a few days before a major DX contest. Too many times I
had fixed them a week or two before only to see them get obliterated
again by another storm a day or two before the next DX contest!
Bob, KQ2M
On 2022-12-27 16:25, David Olean wrote:
I am starting to feel "shell- shocked". I had two storms come
through here in rapid succession. Storm #1 produced incredibly heavy
wet snow. It caused many trees to suffer with large broken limbs. The
snow depth was 13.5 inches. It really stuck to the trees. All of my
eight beverage antennas were damaged as they run though the woods and
had all sorts of large branches fall on them, dropping the wires.
Then the XYL and I both got Covid and were sick in bed for a week or
so. This past Friday, a large rain/ windstorm wiped everything out. We
lost power for a few days and the temps dropped to single digits for a
few days. Everything froze up solid. Many of the beverage wires
managed to get frozen to the ground. (Not fun) My internet connection
was out for almost five days. The damage is quite bad to many of the
trees and the typical scene is a 24" tree trunk (White Pine) snapped
in half about 25 ft up off the ground. The top part then falls and
takes out many trees around it as it comes down. I counted six big
trees down across the beverages and many of the wires have snapped. I
spent a day chain sawing and then followed up with another day
repairing the beverage wire with home made splices. I use aluminum
wire and the splices are aluminum barrels with four sets of 8-32 s.s.
set screws. The high winds combined with huge amounts of water and the
melting snow plus rain managed to wash out the road that goes up to my
VHF hamshack. I had just paid to have the road repaired about a month
ago and all the stone they put down is now gone or in the wrong place!
After two days of working in the woods, I have some of the wires
fixed. I figure another two days and I will have the 160 receive
antennas working again. I m not sure what to do about the road.
73
Dave K1WHS
On 12/27/2022 4:46 PM, Roger Kennedy wrote:
Sorry to see that so many of you in North America are suffering with
horrendous winter weather at the moment.
For those of you who can sill get on 160m, hope to see some of you on
the
band this week.
73 Roger G3YRO
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