I have had some breaks in my antenna lately from high winds and having my antenna 30 feet up in the air is not a fun task to crawl up on top of the house and take it down and put it back up again.
Lately I have had two breaks, the first I fixed and the solder was nothing too big to handle. The second time the wind knocked apart the solder and did a little more extensive damage to the HAM antenna. So I will have to invest in another antenna just because of the possible damage that may occur to the first antenna later on. I am working on repairing it today, but it is not something I want to be doing when there is heavy radiation fallout or when there is ice or 3 feet of snow on my roof either. I may strengthen the antenna so it will handle stronger winds much better as well.
In any case, those that that have HAM's may have to have a backup just in case.
On top of it all, my phone company has changed and shut off my service since I didn't buy their new phones, so until I get my new phone I just purchased from another company going I am out of communication with just about everyone unless I catch a crow or pigeon and send out a message. haha Well, I do still have email to send out messages with, but those who don't have email will wonder what is going on if they can't get ahold of me.
So when cell phone towers are down, our only means of communication is HAM radio.
Should be up and running some time today.