Ernesto pays a visit

Tropical Storm Ernesto came for a visit yesterday. I was too busy at work to call home and see how things were fairing. On the way home, I called home and my wife said that everyone was OK. I asked how the tribander was and she had my son Justin take a look. He said it was all bent up and had fallen off the stepladder supporting the mast. Well, I checked on the antenna the second I got home. The stepladder had leaned over but had not fallen. The reflector was bent over a bit, but when I put the mast back on the ladder, it went right back into place. Unfortunately, my G5RV came down in the storm. It looks as though the wire from the northern end of the antenna was stripped off the insulator. So, I don't think I will have to add any wire to the antenna, but I will have to pull the rope down from the tree on the northern end and re-shoot it over the pine tree. I will have to see if I can borrow our club president's (KE4ZPZ) spud gun to shoot it. If he will let me borrow it, I will just re-shoot the whole antenna on both ends as the southern end is also much lower than it started out this spring. I would not have thought that the G5RV would have come down because there was a lot of slack in the antenna before the storm, but I guess the wind was really whipping around out there. I am hoping to get both antennas up in the next week or so. Unfortunately, I do not see myself getting them up this weekend, but hopefully next weekend. That will be in time for the WAE contest which I would like to try out the new tribander to see how it works. So, here I am, a ham with no HF antennas up at the moment. Of course, I could throw one end of the G5RV over a low limb and operate if I needed to for an emergency, but it is frustrating to not be able to operate. I have had this G5RV come down twice already since I purchased it this year. It does not seem as sturdy as the one I bought from Radio Works over 10 years ago. I still have that antenna, but I was keeping it as a reserve. I did take it to Tennessee in July and used it to operate from there, but I would like to have a sturdier G5RV, so I guess I will have to homebrew one the way I want it.