[600MRG] WD2XSH/20

[Rudy Severns]

It looks like my internet connection held up last night for WSPR reporting 
but it's still flaky.  Right now I have local small time local operation 
with a 5 GHz link.  When it works I get <6 Mb/sec but their tech service is 
very slow, sometimes days!

That's ok, next Thursday I've got the cable company coming to give me their 
service.  The promise (??) >30 Mb/sec.  We'll see how they do.  They've been 
very good with the TV service.

I'm busy rebuilding my transmit antenna.  The ice didn't break any wires but 
the leverage of the forces at the top of the poles actually shoved the pole 
bases out of place a bit tilting the poles so I've had to straighten all the 
poles.  The problem was after planting the poles, even with vigorous 
tamping, the soil around be bases was not really consolidated and we were 
having a drought here so all winter we had very little rain to help the soil 
firm up.  Of course the ice load came before the heavy rain!  Things a much 
more solid now however.

That's done and now I'm redoing the antenna itself.  This time I'm going to 
use less top loading and reduce the horizontal wire length from 1200' to 
500' which will greatly reduce the loading if there's another icing event. 
That will reduce my efficiency a bit but not seriously and I have plenty of 
reserve power anyway.  I hope to be back on by next weekend depending on the 
weather.

73, Rudy