Wild Winds....

The UK hasn't been the only place its been windy during the past week! New Zealand is located in the 'roaring 40s' and here at 43S its been particularly windy over the month or so.

SPLAT!

Not that this is unusual for spring here when the weather warms as the winds shift from their southerly tracks coming up from the Southern Ocean and shift more Nor'westerly and come off the Tasman. But this year has been exceptionally windy and the weekend saw another front coming in with a roar. Winds from these NW'rs are usually warmer than normal, particularly on the leeward side of the Alps, as the wind races down slope, it dries out and gets hotter due to the Fohn effect. 

This weekend saw speeds up to 130 KM/h on the tops and even here in Christchurch it got pretty blowy. Some of the contest sites got pretty battered and Chris ZL3LF and Co at ZL3X up on Banks Peninsular lost some antennas and sleep due to winds at the contest site.

My own array was OK but I could not move the EME antennas most of the weekend and this was sadly one of the three weekends of the ARRL EME contest calendar. I have suffered from the ravages of the NW winds before having lost my previous 144 array to them (see insert) - the problem is the gusts not the mean wind speed - they can go from 30 KMh to 120 KM in an instant and that is not good for towers and antennas! 

The next ARRL EME contest weekend is at the end of November so we will see if things have calmed down then. I hope so as I am expecting a rather special guest from the UK soon - but more of that when he arrives!

Anyway - I hope that the 3.8M dish will be operational again soon as well - the plan is to move this to a smaller tower approx 2m high so I can work on it easier - the aim is to have 9cms EME running soon - and explore some of the higher bands too - even to 10 GHz - if I can find a PA! 23cms should be back on air within the next weeks. 

More soon soon on those antics too !