Building Antennas During the Pandemic

All are architects of Fate, Working in these walls of Time; Some with massive deeds and great, Some with ornaments of rhyme. – from “The Builders” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1850)

Ireflected on these words written over 150 years ago as the tiller bar responded to steering cables when I sought to slew the antenna array around to focus on its designated target. Four stories up, the effect of the Williwaw — the fierce Alaskan windstorm — was multiplied as the earthquake-damaged house creaked and shuddered on its mountainside foundations, but the real battle was taking place outside of these sheltering walls. The stainless steel wire ropes resonated with low thrumming harmony as the lashing winds attacked the guy wires’ clamps and thimbles, seeking to undo weeks of mostly solo labor during the heart of the pandemic. Peak wind gusts exceeding 100 knots are regularly recorded near this location, and I knew that there were many catastrophic failure modes that could launch this fragile assembly into the whirling twilight in a matter of seconds. Finally, with careful trimming of the steering cables and a momentary