I'm starting a project with some other guys on a 6M beacon
which will end up on a mountaintop at around 10K ft in New
Mexico. During winter, that means sub-zero temperatures,
high winds, and ICE build-up on everything exposed. We would
ideally like to put up an omnidirectional horizontally
polarized antenna like a loop. Anyone have experience with
building (or purchasing) such an antenna that would be
sufficiently bulletproof to stand up to a severe weather
environment? We could go vertical, of course, but since this
beacon will be operating in a CW weak-signal environment
under a wide variety of propagation modes (including ground
wave, troposcatter, etc., where polarization is more
important than it is with ionospheric propagation), we'd
like to stay with horizontal if it's physically realistic to
do that. What we don't want to have to do, however, is trek
up to the mountain top every weekend to put the antenna back
up. g

Bill / W5WVO
Albuquerque NM