Rime Ice and Antennas

[jwt873]

We had a heavy fog last night. It went down to -18C or 0C. The supercooled fog droplets built up on everything including my antennas.

My Directive Systems 45 element 1296 Mhz loop Yagi really got coated. The driven element loop was completely covered with ice crystals. (As in the photos below). What's really interesting about this is that, there was no change in the SWR or the antenna performance. I can still trip the local D-Star repeater that's 30 miles away and receive it just as strong as ever.

And for the heck of it, I attached a pic of some of the trees on my property.

 

[WA8ZTZ]

nice pics, thanks for sharing... fortunately no apparent damage to the antennas

 

[Rt169Radio]

That's cool, thanks for posting the pics!

 

[a417]

Time to hook up the linear flamethrower.

 

[MUTNAV]

Time to hook up the linear flamethrower.

I was wondering about that, I remember reading in one antenna book about how a wire antenna could have a bit of voltage put through it to heat it up and melt ice, maybe a loop skywire?

Never thought of a linear.

Thanks
Joel

 

[merlin]

Ice collecting on an antenna hardly has any effect but I have seen hard ice twist a commercial Yagi clear out of shape.
My stationmaster looked funny with ice sticking out horizontal, that would have been a Kodak moment.

 

[merlin]

I was wondering about that, I remember reading in one antenna book about how a wire antenna could have a bit of voltage put through it to heat it up and melt ice, maybe a loop skywire?

Never thought of a linear.

Thanks
Joel

Biggest problem with ice on wire antennae is weight can exceeder tensil strength and break.
Counter weight with pulley helps prevent that.
My counter weight was an old car door.

 

[mmckenna]

 

[ab3a]

The biggest problem with ice isn't the ice itself, but the additional weight and wind loading. That's the scary stuff.