Heavy topic
It seems that my antenna is top heavy. I guess having a framework of EMT conduit with 3 antennas mounted at the very top just might cause that, I don't know physics, but I can see that happening.
About a week ago, we had a nasty storm. A real "oh shit, go unplug the antennas from the passthrough and pray you don't get hit by lightning at the same time" moment. It rained something like 4.5" in this area, along with a ton of lightning and thunder.
After that passed, sometime the next day, I plugged everything back in and fired up the scanner and the FT-991. Not much ham traffic, but that isn't unusual during the day, but there was a little bit of aviation traffic being picked up. After a while listening while working, I decided to go to the kitchen for a drink. I'd just refilled the bird feeders the other day and looked out to see my lovely antenna pole horizontal on the ground, with a few of the discone elements buried in the dirt. Ten minutes of working on the elements with a pair of pliers and all seems to be ok, and suddenly I have ham traffic.
Today, being a day off, I futzed around the house, messing with a few projects, and installed a blind spot camera on the truck with a small LED monitor, and it all works pretty good. I have to find a switched power circuit, and all of the ones I have found are hot all the time which won't work.
I did go to the back yard and dropped a bag of gravel onto the tripod, because this morning when I went out to feed the birds again, I found the pole at a 30 degree angle. Hopefully weighing the tripod down will resolve this issue, as I'm tired of having to fix things.


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