Snow affecting the RF-performance

Yesterday we showed a plot which indicated strange spectral responses of the LBA aerials #L33 and #L34. Today we show what is causing this strange effect...

Snow.

Each LBA aerial has four wires that descend from the top of the aerial down towards the corner pegs. This is the receiving wires. However, the lower part is just for support and is either nylon or elastic. As long as the snow is below that level, it does not affect the performance of the wires to receive the radio waves.

The wires reach down to approx. 65 cm above the ground. But, if the snow depth exceeds 65 cm, then this partial covering will start to affect the antenna. And this is precisely what happened to aerials #L33 and #L34.

The author inspecting #L34. The snow depth here is 70 cm.