Storm Damage, 2/6/2020

I had a little storm damage to the tower mounted antennas on 2/6/2020, though only a small amount. My tower is 105' tall, and the yagi antennas are mounted on top of that. The lowest antenna is the 6el Force-12 HF yagi, the middle yagi is the Cushcraft a50-5S 5el 6 meter yagi, and the top yagi is a Cushcraft 13B2 2m SSB yagi. 

We have had a weird winter...warm and wet. This is normally the time of year where we have temps in the low teens and the largest snowfalls. This year, we've barely run the home heating system, with lots of days in the 50's, 60's, and even 70's...and lots of rain. On this day, the temps started off in the 70's, fell about 20 degrees, and tremendous winds blew through. Rain storms were reported at moving over 100 mph (!!) by the local weather station, and there was lots of wind damage. We had loads of tree limbs down, but the damage in the photo below is the only antenna damage I had. The Force-12 at 105' was twisted on the vertical mast, the 6m 5 element yagi had a little damage to the reflector, and the tower mounted dipoles for 80 & 160 had a limb hanging on them. That's all! I'll take that any day, compared to the storm damage in 2016 that took the tower down :-)

Dave WB4IUY
www.WB4IUY.net

Completing a 13B2 2M SSB Yagi (re)build...

The 2nd evening of work on this antenna went pretty quickly...mostly just assembly of the parts that had been straightened, cut to length, salvaged, etc. This antenna went together well, and I got it bolted up to the test tower section for tuneup. The SWR match was great, and adjustment went right by the Cushcraft instructions. Here's a few pics and info...

 All parts and hardware, ready to go together...

 Bolting the elements to the boom....

 Assembly almost completed...

 Checking for element alignment...

 Bolted to a piece of tower, set up to test the antennas I'm rebuilding...

 

Ready to install on the primary tower!  This was totally built without sending a penny, just by salvaging all needed and materials and hardware from the wreckage. Time to start the next antenna (re)build from the scrap pile :-)

Dave WB4IUY
http://www.WB4IUY.net

Building a 13B2 from 2ea 13B3 Yagi's...

Wow, the storm of April 2016 that wrecked my tower, converted 17 antennas into scrap metal. I kept what I could in a big pile, with plans to eventually rebuild as much as possible from the wreckage. I had a 13B2 on 2m FM, and a 13B3 on 2M SSB. I was able to salvage enough elements and boom tubing to build a 13B2 for 2M SSB :-) Let's get started...

I can't find the photo of the original pile, but it makes this pic look like new antennas :-) I picked and saved as much as I could, some of the parts were so smashed up that there was no way to use it for anything.

Here, I began to lay out what I had from this and another antenna that could possibly be straightened, repaired, and reused. It became obvious that there was probably only enough good or repairable parts to build a 13 element 2 meter yagi. At 112' with good feed line, that'll still do a good job for me. Being a tightwad, I try to build or restore as much as possible.

This is a section of boom stock that I think I can repair in my redneck tubing straightener. Read my previous blog on the 6m antenna rebuild for more info on that hi-tech device.

Boom stock after being reworked in my redneck tubing straightener.

Here's a pile of parts I have salvaged from the two antennas. Elements of various lengths, element mounting hardware, driven elements, etc.

Boom straightening and assembly almost finished here, just a little tweak here or there neeed for a perfectly straight boom, now...

  Back in the shop, I sorted the elements, cut them to the required lengths where needed, and labeled them for re-installation on the boom. Enough for today...time to call it quits on the project and return later to finish it...

Dave WB4IUY

http://www.WB4IUY.net