Sleet Removal from Antennas

A method is described for automatically releasing the antenna wires in case of excessive sleet load. Should the wires break under a heavy coating of ice, serious damage to the self-supporting towers would result, due to the unbalanced load. It also describes a new type of suspension condenser developed for the sole purpose of preventing the low frequency energy going to the ground and thus making it possible to melt sleet from the individual antenna wires of the multiple tuned antenna without the use and inconvenience of complicated switching at each ground point. The mechanical as well as the electrical design of this condenser is unique. Further, it is believed that dynotrips and pliotrips can be adopted to power transmission lines in such a way as to prevent a big percentage of interruptions. These pieces of apparatus can be so arranged as automatically to introduce into the lines at intervals, additional lengths of conductor and thus increase the sag. It is expected that for long spans over canyons, these would be almost indispensable.