With gales forecast for this weekend I brought the cobweb right down to a safer level (about 12 ft) and I was right to do so as the wind picked up Sunday morning and we had gusts up to 60mph.
The W3DZZ was being blown all over the place and three times I ventured out in the wind and rain to do running repairs where the wire had broken free from one of the traps, a well-known problem with the W3DZZ, those traps are a real pain to fix in place! In the end I gave up, 40 meters was busy anyway with a big contest going on and operators were not going to be bothered with me moaning about my antenna problems.
It’s still surprises me when antennas are limited in height how they can still work, especially the cobweb which although only 12ft up still managed to work most of Europe and I could even hear the VKs but of course there was no way they could hear me.
At one stage the 30 meter vertical was bending virtually at right angles but easily proved to be the best antenna during the storm and I was happily qso ing with most of Europe telling them how bad it was, while most of them were giving me reports of fine warm weather!
It was a classic European weather pattern with the jet stream sailing right up over the English Channel bringing stormy weather to the north and much milder warmer air to the south, while Britain was being battered by storms much of Europe was having above average temperatures!
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