After 45 years of radio I have come to the conclusion that wind is actually pretty smart, mother nature will always find a way,
when I was a young lad myself and locals had several antennas that withstood 70mph+ winds,
some withstood 80+ without damage & my beefed up sigma4 withstood the strongest winds in my lifetime gusts of 100mph+ that snapped my guy cable & 73ft mast,
even some of the cheap sigma/venom style antennas would easy withstand 70mph+ without bending,
4 section ARMCO 1/2wave would be back up straight right after a good 80mph thrashing,
they say you cannot stop progress & that's true, everything evolves like it or not,
since I was a lad the winds have had 40+ years to hone their skills, they have become more damaging for less effort,
gone are the golden years when 80mph was when you started thinking your antenna may bend,
what they did @80mph+ they now do at somewhere above 45 but often below 60mph,
almost every time the wind blows past 50mph we have antenna damage somewhere in the area,
2 more snapped last night & probably more will be damaged tonight with 60mph forecast,
clearly the wind learned a lot in 40+ years,
realizing what was actually going on with the wind was a revelation to me, opened my eyes to natures power,
for years I believed that it was todays antenna manufacturers that used shitty thin wall or soft alloy tube & the cheapest weakest type of grp tube available.
when I was a young lad myself and locals had several antennas that withstood 70mph+ winds,
some withstood 80+ without damage & my beefed up sigma4 withstood the strongest winds in my lifetime gusts of 100mph+ that snapped my guy cable & 73ft mast,
even some of the cheap sigma/venom style antennas would easy withstand 70mph+ without bending,
4 section ARMCO 1/2wave would be back up straight right after a good 80mph thrashing,
they say you cannot stop progress & that's true, everything evolves like it or not,
since I was a lad the winds have had 40+ years to hone their skills, they have become more damaging for less effort,
gone are the golden years when 80mph was when you started thinking your antenna may bend,
what they did @80mph+ they now do at somewhere above 45 but often below 60mph,
almost every time the wind blows past 50mph we have antenna damage somewhere in the area,
2 more snapped last night & probably more will be damaged tonight with 60mph forecast,
clearly the wind learned a lot in 40+ years,
realizing what was actually going on with the wind was a revelation to me, opened my eyes to natures power,
for years I believed that it was todays antenna manufacturers that used shitty thin wall or soft alloy tube & the cheapest weakest type of grp tube available.
