Jeff, For the last 10 years before I moved to Riverstone in 2017, I had a fold-up antenna I engineered with the help of a mechanical engineer.The mast is a 20' 2" steel pole. I welded a c-bracket for the eaves of my garage to use as a pivot at the 8' mark.It required 62lbs of counter balance after compensating for the weight of the pole above 8' and the 22lb antenna.I could fold it up and down with one finger.At the bottom I put a short pipe in the ground to secure it with a bolt. Here is the pictures up and swinging down.fldupantenna2.jpg
| | | | | | | | | | | fldupantenna2.jpg | | | It worked great with a MFJ rotatable dipole.https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1WMkIW_gDYvdFcwS015bUd4Ync/view?usp=sharing&resourcekey=0-s9CPmHnBkCtVj1b0emw5ug Now I have a folded dipole up 20' in the trees using a tree in the middle and that same mast on one end. I also have a 40M Skyloop with the same mast and trees. You are welcome to come to Riverstone and see sometime.TerryK5pgf Oh yea. I also used to be a HOA board member in Colony Grant.I have a letter that passed for my application before I became a board member based on that fold up antenna. Terry Leatherland, K5PGF281-455-8090Sugar Land, Tx On Wednesday, March 30, 2022, 03:02:14 PM CDT, Jeff Greer via BVARC <bvarc@bvarc.org> wrote: Hi, BVARC! I'm curious as to what others are doing for masts/towers. I'm in an HOA ("no antennas") with a tiny little yard. Nobody has complained so far about my homebrew "DX Commander" style fan vertical, which looks like a 31' jackite pole (because that's pretty much what it is, with some 3d-printed wire spreaders). I was holding that up w/ a 5' piece of 3/4 copper water pipe driven halfway into the ground. Worked for several months, but the wind finally bent the pipe. I have some 5' electrical conduit that looks a little tougher, but I may resort to guying. The metal inside the bottom of the fiberglass pole, I suspect, interferes with my 10m element, anyway... I'm also wanting to put my Ed Fong DBJ-1 (which looks like a 5' PVC pipe) up with the feedpoint 25-30'. I picked up a couple of old tires, and I'm thinking of filling one with concrete (think tetherball pole) and mounting a couple of pieces of angle iron in the concrete, so I can drill holes, put some sort of mast between them, and make a "tilt over" base/hinge for the mast. Has anybody built a self-supporting (non-guyed) 30 foot mast out of, say, some sort of stock from Home Depot/Lowe's? The internet has lots of stories about using chain link fence top rail (10' sections), but most say that 2 of those (20') is all you join before it gets super wobbly. Would love to use some sort of square tube - maybe nesting sections - but not sure where to get 10' sections, and not sure aluminum would be strong enough or steel would be light enough... Anyway, that's where I am. I thought I'd float this out there to benefit from the experience of those who have been there and done that. Hope y'all can help me come up with something that will work while avoiding poor choices that could cause damage or hurt somebody. Thanks! -Jeff, W5JEF ________________________________________________ Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club BVARC mailing list BVARC@bvarc.org http://mail.bvarc.org/mailman/listinfo/bvarc_bvarc.org Publicly available archives are available here: https://www.mail-archive.com/bvarc@bvarc.org/
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