On Sun, 29 Apr 2012 12:13:28 -0700, "Sal" wrote:

Luckily,in SoCal we don't contend with that very often -- Santa Ana winds in
the canyons being the occasional exception. I feel for you.

The winds wasn't that bad. I live in a redwood, fir, oak, and madrone
forest, which blocks most of the wind. The problems are caused by
falling trees and limbs. I have a fair size ding in my car hood, and
had an oak tree land on my flat roof, destroying most of my antennas
and trashing in a skylight. Most of the shock was absorbed by my
neighbors roof.
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/2011-12-03-Storm/
So much for the idyllic life in the forest.

Meanwhile, just hang up any old thing and agitate some 'trons. A 20m dipole
at 15 feet (one end tied off to my chimney and the other end to a branch in
my neighbor's macadamia nut tree) is all I have or apparently need. Yes, 1
KW into a SteppIR on a 50 foot tower is better, but at a cost of several
thousand dollars per S-unit.

There's no way I can rotate a horizontal antenna without hitting a
tree or the hillside behind my house. A tower might help, if it were
200ft high, and the swaying trees won't hit the antenna. I'm stuck
with using wire antennas and verticals.

Really, it's all good. Maybe you heard my long-ago story about my 20m
first-ever QSO with Hawaii. I got a 5-9 but the antenna was primitive: an
existing 10m vertical dipole, with one end clipped to an extension ladder
laying on the ground. True.

Yep, RF is magic. I managed to make a QSO into a Heathkit Cantenna,
but that's about the limits of my non-traditional antenna experiments.
One of these days, I'm going to build an NEC2 model of an aluminum
ladder and see what can be done to use it on VHF or UHF.

So, I climbed up on my roof with a balun and some wire, intending to
make a dipole. Normally, this is a trivial exercise. However,
there's a problem. All the labels have peeled off my multitude of
coax cables. The labels were UV proof but apparently not water proof.
Almost all of my coax cables came off the same roll of RG6a/u and look
identical. This is going to be a problem.

I did manage to find all the parts to a Radio Shock discone antenna,
which is now simulating a wet noodle on top of a 10ft 3/4" PVC pipe.
That's because I can't find a single 10ft mast section that doesn't
have a fatal dent or bend.

The 12ft(?) long VHF/UHF Comet fiberglass antenna survived the tree
fall, but will need to come down for some cleaning. The outside is
covered with green slime. Experience has shown that when the outside
is covered with green slime, so is the inside.

Maybe I should give up for the day, and just clean up the workbench.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558