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We received a remarkable amount of snow yesterday here in central NC, my antenna iced up and looked very pretty, then the wind picked up and my antenna fell down.  Boo-hiss !

My homebrew OCFD antenna is constructed from donated, surplus, lightweight doorbell type wire attached to a 4:1 current balun in a PVC tube with threaded nuts to hold each end of the dipole on top and a coax connector on the bottom.  An eyelet through the top of the balun suspends it all via some 10 year old dacron rope (dacron rope is amazing stuff), which is attached to the eave at the peak of my roof.

How, pray tell did I get the rope attached to the peak of roof 33 feet up in the air you ask, having no tall ladders or Spiderman abilities? I'm glad you asked... Well, the rope is tied inexpertly, using granny knots, to one side of an S-hook.  I use a cane-pole fishing rod as an extension with a piece of masking tape on the end lightly holding the S-hook. Then I precariously lean out my 3rd story window eight feet under the eave (don't try this at home) and "fish" the S-hook through a loop at the peak of the eave, that was installed there by my nice painter, many years ago.  Once the S-hook is in the loop, I tug on the fishing pole and the masking tape lets loose of the S-hook and the S-hook remains in the loop, holding a few feet of old dacron rope.  QRP-indeed !

This incarnation of the antenna was first installed November 2015.  In that time an ice storm drug it to the ground, and a tropical storm broke the mooring as well.

Amazing stuff, doorbell wire and old dacron rope.

Even with my outdoor antenna down, I was able to make a contact on 80m last night using the 68'ish foot long doublet in my attic so wasn't completely incommunicado.  It shouldn't be hard to get the OCFD operational again.  A bit harder will be repairing the blueberry cage that collapsed under the weight of snow on top of the netting.

This antenna is designed to fail gracefully

I wanted to be sure that when the antenna was under stress it would relieve itself at the easiest place to repair.  The rope on the long end of offset dipole runs through a pulley attached, with a zip tie, at the top of a set of sturdy, stacked fiberglass tent poles.  The rope runs through the zip-tie attached pulley to a long, lightweight, spring (the kind used for a small fence gate) along with the pulley provides the strain relief when it's windy. The zip tie holding the pulley at the top of the pole is intentionally the weak link.  When the forces become too much the zip tie breaks and the long, heavy side of the antenna falls across the garden.  It's a simple matter to pull a section of the fiberglass pole loose, attach a new zip tie, and Bob's your uncle.

So when you design your next wire antenna, plan ahead for easy repair.

That's all for now...

72/73

Richard AA4OO