The freak snow storm in late October wreaked havoc on the ARRL HQ antenna farm. According to W1AW Station Manager Joe Carcia, NJ1Q, both of W1AW’s M-Squared 40 meter Yagis were severely damaged, as was the 80 meter cage antenna, and an element on the north tower’s 10 meter Yagi was twisted vertically. The antennas atop the ARRL Headquarters building for W1HQ, the station for the Laird Campbell Memorial HQ Operators Club, also received damage: the Gap Titan vertical was turned into something that looked like a pretzel, and the Pro-Sis-Tel rotator was also damaged.

“Until we could get these antennas replaced, we had some temporary fixes so we could still send out the bulletins and provide a station for our visitors,” Carcia explained. “For 40 meters, I homebrewed a ‘fat dipole,’ and for 80 meters, I strung a simple dipole off the north tower.”

Matt Strelow, KC1XX, and Andrew Toth of XX Towers came to Newington earlier this week to replace most of the damaged items. Together with Carcia, they removed the damaged 80 meter wire cage antenna and repaired the element on the 10 meter Yagi on the north tower. They also removed the two damaged 40 meter Yagis on the center tower (a 120 foot Rohn 65 tower) and replaced them with two new Cushcraft XM240 40 meter Yagi antennas. For W1HQ, they replaced the damaged rotator with a new Yaesu G-1000DXA rotator. Before Strelow and Toth arrived, Carcia had already assembled both of the new 40 meter Yagis and prepared the new W1HQ rotator and its control cable.

“Matt and Andrew normally perform inspections for W1AW and W1HQ twice a year in the spring and autumn,” Carcia said. “They were here for two days installing the new antennas, but they did not perform any inspections. They’ll come back in the spring for that.”

In the early spring, Carcia will replace the Gap Titan that used to be on top of the ARRL HQ building with a vertical antenna that SteppIR has donated to W1HQ.