Later I went to Hatrys ham store and bought 170' of Channel Master telescoping mast. 170' was the FCC limit in 1966, so I wanted to be legal, of course. I actually tried to put it up in the back yard of a suburban house. That's another terribly wasteful story for another time... sigh.
I SO want to hear this story!
OK, you twisted my arm...
I was about 13 years old with a paper route. Not knowing anything about mechanics and the fact that Channel Master telescoping mast that thin couldn't stand more than 40' guyed every 10', I went in and paid for 17 sections. Now to get it home. I planned on carrying all 170' onto the Connecticut Bus Line that ran from Htfd to Windsor, about a 5 mile ride. Corky the ham salesman took pity on me and loaded it into his station wagon and gave me a ride home.
I only had enuff cash to buy 150' of guy wire. In reality I would have needed several thousand feet or more. The next day I started pushing the mast together in sections. I wanted to make sure it was good and tight so I slammed it against the house foundation. I split the seams of a few mast female ends. My dad came out yelling that I might punch a hole in the wall.
After a while the mast was about 100' long, snaking through the yard on the ground. I was beginning to have grave doubts if it would stand up at 170', so I decided to make two masts at 80' each to handle a flat dipole. So there's two 80' masts on the ground with only 150' of guy wire available. I went down to the hardware store and loaded up on clothes-line rope. After everything was laid out I went down the street recruiting all the neighborhood kids I could find for the mast raising. We all pulled like crazy, but the mast just swung around and kept falling to the ground like a big snake. A strapping neighbor came over and helped but that made it worst as the mast fell over and hit me pretty hard on the head.
All the kids went home and there I was with an expensive mess in the yard. Then I got the idea of chopping down a big tree in the nearby woods as a support and lashing the mast to it. I spent about three days chopping and dragging it into the yard. My dad put in some concrete and with the help of four neighbors we stood up this 40' tree pole. We got a tall ladder and lashed the mast to it and slid it up to about 60' with guy ropes - a pulley at the top to raise and lower inv vees.. Not bad, but not 170' like the original plan.
I got on the air with it using a 75M invereted Vee. I was immediately disappointed because I was getting only 5-7-9s, not 599's. I figured the mast was interfering with my inv vee. Dumb! So after all this work I then chopped down the tree and mast. My dad came home and was livid!
I then took the remaining mast and lashed three 50' sections together in one fat pole. This was a major job to erect and guy, but it was worth it. It solved the problem of having no tree supports on one side of the yard, so now I could put up a flat dipole at 50'. It worked FB for about a year.
Finally, the ultimate antenna using this masting was to take 40' and climb a 60' tree. Then I slid it up the tree and lashed it on. The top was at about 75' and guyed with the 75M inv vee itself and open wire feeders. The Tron came over in 1972 and commented that it was the highest AMer ant he had seen to date...
As the years went by I would find a pile of that old rusted masting. A friend even used some of it on his inv vee projects five years ago. I used to think if I only had all the money I spent on hair brained antenna projects from those early days... But it was all part of the magic back then. When I look at a picture of Hiram's bird cage at 50' using haywire guyed masts in a Hartford urban area, I understand.
73,
T
