Hy-Gain Mast

[flintstone mop]

Hello,
I think Hy-Gain is making a 65 foot mast for $189.00. I was wondering if I could justify buying this thing for an inverted "L", supposedly the antenna that gives low and high angle radiation. The horizontal part of the L would go into some tall pines at the edge of my property. Just a play time thought. I don't think I can devote the time to it for this radio season.
Fred

[Jim, W5JO]

One of the bad things about a telescoping mast is that the contact between the sections tend to corrode over time.  That can cause you some receiving grief, and if bad enough, transmitting problems.

If you do this, take some coax and strip off the braid and make some jumpers with eye terminals on each end.  Drill a hole and use a stainless screw to jump over each section joint as you put it up.  I used a 4 section one time and it will do just fine, but it is a bit of a challenge to get up by oneself.

Take a look at that military mast thing that Fari Radio sells,  4 ft. long aluminum mast sections with the guy rings and the sections are about 2-3 inches in diameter.  Do the same jumper across the sections.  This would be much lighter and easier for one person to handle.  If they only have the fiberglass type, just run a wire from a hole in the bottom up through the entire vertical part and out on to the end.  If you used the aluminum, you might have to empty a Jack Daniles bottle to use as a base insulator.

I am very satisfied with my L on 160.  Just put a bunch of radials under it and get the reflection coefficient down as low as possuble.

[flintstone mop]

Thanks Jim,
For the Y2K joke we went through, the company I worked for bough a reall nice 50 foot military mast from some Ham in Canada for $450.00. You needed 2-3 people for that one. It had 2-3 inch diameter aluminum sections that fit in some sort of device and the guy at the base cranked it up. The others worked on the guy sections as it increased in height.
I'll have to think of another way. I might put up a steel 80 foot tower later on in life............hi
Fred

[KB2WIG]

The mil push up ( really crank up) towers are the berries.....   If your local jurisdiction will not let you errect a permanent tower, try to get away with this as a temporary tower. Kinda like a mobile home...

 One can put it up, tension the guys, operate, and pull it down. Once its been put up by, say,4 people, it can be lowered by one person.  Probably a gud idea to have another person around so if you screw it up and get injured you'll have someone to laugh (help). You just leave the guy stakes, slack off the guy adjusters a bit, leave the base unit there and re-errect it when needed. This can be done by one person as  the stuff is still there in place.  klc

[Jim, W5JO]

With the stuff I am using, I drove 3 metal fence poles about 2/3 the height distance from  the pole before beginning.  Then as I stacked the sections I let the pole rest against two of the guy ropes.  Each section is 4 ft. and I put up 10 of them without aid. 

I just tilt the bottom back and let the two ropes hold it until I can loosen them a little more as needed.  I can take the thing down in about 15 minutes and then re-erect in about 20.  The fiberglass version would be a little lighter and with adequate guying would withstand a lot of wind or ice.