11/23/2009 | K7XC Friday morning I left the house, late, for a doctors appointment in Reno (1 hr drive) thinking with the winds coming I needed to lower the tower when I get home later.... I never got that opportunity....

For years now, my primary antenna tower has been a 37 ft US towers crankp mounted on a US towers tower trailer. This thing has seen service all over the west, been dragged to the tops of tall mountains on hellish 4 wheel drive trails, and Friday before SS SSB a huge gust of wind blew the whole tower and trailer over while fully extended... yes, with all the outriggers in place, the winds were strong enough to overcome the base and flip it and the tower over causing the antennas to crumple like toothpicks and the tower to bend in a
ever so graceful arc with the trailer left on its side and one wheel in the air.... The feedline's were yanked so hard that coax entry port was pulled off the house, leaving a gaping hole in the radio
room wall... with a huge winter storm on its way.

I spent the next 5 hours dismantling the remnants of the antennas from the mast, the mast from the rotor, the rotor from the top of the tower, untaping and disconnecting all the cables to the antennas and rotor, cleaning all the old RTV from the coax entry port, repairing the wall, and resealing the whole mess back to the outer wall with 1/2 a tube of latex caulking material.

In the middle of all this, I noticed the 30 ft pole holding the 80/40M inv vees was leaning precariously to one side. I managed to redo the guy rope during the 75 MPH gusts and save the remaining
wire antennas for use in SS SSB this weekend.

With the winter storm bearing down on me i then dragged out my 5KW gas generator, drained and flushed the gas tank, removed and clean the float bowl/jet, and reassembled it just in case the storm causes the the AC power to fail as well. Filled with fresh gas, a single
pull on the rip cord fired the generator up w/o a hitch. Thank god something went right today...

Shortly thereafter my good from Pat - WX7M showed up with a loaner KW amp and helped me wire the shack right then and there for 220V. After an hour of standing in the bitter cold and dark, with the winds still howling and the sand penetrating every pore of exposed skin, we managed to run the 220V into the shack, wire up a outlet on a box left floating around the floor under the workbench and fire off and test the KW on all the bands... After some minor operator Malfunctions (to be expected after the afternoon and evening that I just endured) we manage to convince the amp to output 1.2KW on all bands... You take your victories where you can and this will make SS SSB fun and not the hell operating "A" power would have been!

I then checked all the remaining antennas... fortunately the classic 33 atop the garage rooftop tower is still up and playing well, and the Inv vees survived the lashing the wild winds gave them.
With some minor adjustment to resonate the wires on the SSB portion of 80 and 40, the lowband vee's were ready to go for SS SSB Sat afternoon.... (assuming no more operator malfunctions occur)

All this is the name of fun! If I wasn't sure before... I know it know... I am certifiably crazy! lol

I never expected to endure so much immeadiately before a contest but as anyone who has been in this sport any length of time will tell you, always plan for the worst and hope for the best.. I was actually very lucky... The tower fell into a area of open space hurting not a soul and destroyed nothing but it self and the yagi,s mounted on it. Had it fell any other way it could have taken out the remaining wire antennas, the garage, the house and maybe me or my lady as well.... As it is, I had all the antennas needed to run SS ready in time for the contest. Thank God for small miracles...

How did I do? Well the contest... as posted to the 3830 reflector...
----------------

2009 ARRL Sweepstakes Contest SSB, Call: K7XC, Operator(s): K7XC, Station: K7XC, Class: SO Unlimited HP, QTH: Fallon, NV, Operating Time (hrs): 18.

Summary: QSO's- 160: 0, 80: 297, 40: 93, 20: 116, 15: 296, 10: 7. Total: 809 Sections = 80 Total Score = 129,440

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Comments: SWEEP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What joy to work a sweep in each mode... A small victory considering that my 37ft crank-up tower trailer was pushed over in 85 MPH winds a mere 24 hrs before the contest. Fortunately the tower destroyed only itself and it's long boom 50/144 Mhz antennas, It could have been much worse. As a
result of dealing with all of the madness of a downed tower, broken
antennas, a dead back up generator, and a hole in the wall where the cable entry port used to be, I started the contest dead tired and emotionally spent, not my idea of fun.

Kudos to Patrick - WX7M who showed up 3 hrs after the tower fell to loan me a IC-4KL solid state auto tune KW amplifier. He stayed and together in the huge winds and bitter cold we ran a 220V line into the shack so the station would be QRO in time for the event.

I stopped with 5 hrs left in the contest as I just didn't have the energy to go any further.... I met my goals of a sweep and at least doubling last years score so i called it a night.

Now that this weekend this weekend of fun and frivolity is but a memory, I have posted pics of the carnage here and on my website for those voyeurs out there who enjoy such things...

73s de Tim - K7XC - DM09nm... sk

PS: SSB sucks! CW FOREVER! KB!!!!!!!!!! -- K7XC