Well, that was Storm Francis! The only legacy he left, with his probing gusts of wind, was this scene, which greeted me on opening the window blinds this morning:
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| Minor work... |
The fibre glass spreader arm on my 6m quad is intact, and doing very well after nearly a decade of exposure to the weather by now. The only repair needed - already finished early this morning, was to replace some sun-decayed plastic cable ties that hold the arms in place.
For the future, I've ordered some stainless steel cable ties to keep the arms in place on the aluminium crosses, and will now use them wherever I can on other antennas, too. I've been buying plastic ties with 5% carbon in them for a couple of years, hoping they would be a little stronger and more UV-resistant. But in fact, they seem no more resistant to UV than cheap ones I can buy at the local hardware store, where failure happens after only a couple of years.
Having had months of very hot, sunny weather earlier in the summer in the UK, it's a good idea to check any plastic cable ties for signs of failure before the winter makes such work unpleasant or even impossible.
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