Whip It
On Thursday evening, during the massive wind storm, we had the excessively delayed Amtrak train east of Fernley. We could hear the engineer through the scanner, but not the conductor on his hand-held radio, which was odd because normally we should have been able to hear both of them. Radio traffic during the storm was light, but we thought that was because there weren't many trains running due to the storm. But there was more to it than that, as Lisa discovered on Sunday.
This is the small tower on which Lisa built this antenna that is attached to our scanner. It may not be that obvious, but the antenna whip - the piece of metal that should be sticking straight up from the four horizontal wires that form the antenna's ground plane - is missing.
There's a tiny stub sticking out of the antenna mount. That wind was so strong that it snapped off the antenna! Lisa boggled at this, because this antenna is designed to be mounted to the roof of a vehicle, and thus should be able to withstand winds of 70 mph. Thursday's storm was too much for it.
Fortunately, Lisa had a spare antenna, shown here next to the stub of the old one. Now we need to order a new antenna, however, as this was the last one in Lisa's stock.
Lisa mounted the new antenna and all was well.
With the replacement antenna in place, normal service was resumed and we soon hear the railroad radio. Indeed, the reception is a little better than usual. Besides hearing the dispatcher covering the Nevada Subdivision (former Southern Pacific) that runs in front of our house, this evening I heard the dispatcher on the Winnemucca Subdivision (former Western Pacific) telling a train crew to tie down their train at Doyle rather than continue to Reno Junction, as they had only 30 minutes of service left. She was sending a crew van to Doyle to collect them.
The loss of that antenna whip tends to confirm that this was the worst wind storm we've had since we moved here in 2011.
This is the small tower on which Lisa built this antenna that is attached to our scanner. It may not be that obvious, but the antenna whip - the piece of metal that should be sticking straight up from the four horizontal wires that form the antenna's ground plane - is missing.
There's a tiny stub sticking out of the antenna mount. That wind was so strong that it snapped off the antenna! Lisa boggled at this, because this antenna is designed to be mounted to the roof of a vehicle, and thus should be able to withstand winds of 70 mph. Thursday's storm was too much for it.
Fortunately, Lisa had a spare antenna, shown here next to the stub of the old one. Now we need to order a new antenna, however, as this was the last one in Lisa's stock.
Lisa mounted the new antenna and all was well.
With the replacement antenna in place, normal service was resumed and we soon hear the railroad radio. Indeed, the reception is a little better than usual. Besides hearing the dispatcher covering the Nevada Subdivision (former Southern Pacific) that runs in front of our house, this evening I heard the dispatcher on the Winnemucca Subdivision (former Western Pacific) telling a train crew to tie down their train at Doyle rather than continue to Reno Junction, as they had only 30 minutes of service left. She was sending a crew van to Doyle to collect them.
The loss of that antenna whip tends to confirm that this was the worst wind storm we've had since we moved here in 2011.