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Camb-Hams DX Blog

One of the first antennas up after our arrival was the 80m vertical, mounted on an 18m fibreglass Spiderbeam pole.

Our cottages are right on the shoreline, which is great for take-off but less good for the practicalities of guying antennas, as there’s rock within a few inches of the grass. In the case of the 80m vertical, we had it tied off on some helpfully-positioned metalwork on the pier on two sides, and a stake we’d managed to get into the ground on another side, but the fourth guy had to be tied to large rocks because there was no other suitable place.

Having got 80m up, we got the 40m vertical erected and were about to start work on the 20m vertical when there was a loud crash, at about the same time as a particularly strong gust of wind. We looked up and quickly realised the 80m vertical was no longer… vertical.

Broken 80m vertical

This is obviously a bit of a blow [deliberate pun] but we have a spare 18m Spiderbeam pole we were planning to use on 472kHz, which we’ll use on 80m once the wind has dropped a bit. We can use alternative supports on 472kHz, so we’ll still be on there too.

Until the wind subsides, however, we’re just using an 80m dipole.