[600MRG] Free standing verticals

Thu Feb 8 10:23:17 EST 2018

One cheap method to get some height is to mount a 10-12 ft piece of Sch 
40 large dia PVC pipe on your post with a short adapter or shimming on 
top to fit a tall (say 30 ft) lightweight carbon fiber fishing pole/kite 
pole on top, which just drops in.  The trick is to run a wire INSIDE the 
kite pole attached at the top and run right out the bottom and through 
the PVC pipe.  A light horizontal wire can run to your other pole.  This 
should be self supporting although it will bend towards the house.  I 
think the main problem would be breaking of the horizontal wire in high 
winds.  An light guy line (or wire) run from the top to the neighbor's 
house might help.
I also have used electrical tape on each joint when extending the kite 
pole to prevent collapsing.
Depending on soil conditions, I would consider enlarging the bottom of 
the post hole and packing in a bag (80 lbs) of mixed QuickCrete. I 
installed >20 8 ft sign posts this fall.

On 2/8/2018 12:10 AM, Ben Gelb wrote:
> Thanks all for the replies.
>
> Yard is 30' wide by perhaps 45' deep behind my rental house in San 
> Francisco. There is one tree of substantial height (the one thats 
> going away) on one corner of the yard (up against mine and my 
> neighbor's house on the east side of me). That currently gives me 
> about 30' of vertical for my inverted L, and then I have a fiberglass 
> fishing pole supporting the end of the top-hat about 30' away from the 
> vertical. (this inverted L is my only transmitting antenna currently, 
> but for MF and HF - I also have a couple of small receiving loops on a 
> rotatable base at ground level)
>
> With the tree gone will need to provide my own structure, and I would 
> prefer to avoid a lot of guying if possible, as there's not a lot of 
> room for it, and it will really consume the entire yard. I was 
> thinking to sink a 4x4 or 6x6 post into the ground (i have a post-hole 
> digger) and then maybe attach some sort of mast to it, hopefully stiff 
> enough to not need any guying (or at least not much). Alternatively, 
> the DX Engineering MBVA-5A looks like it might be a reasonable option, 
> albeit perhaps a bit more expensive than some home-depot option 
> (ostensibly it doesn't require guying).
>
> If I were to kludge up some set of metal pipes and tubes, I wonder how 
> I might mount it to a wooden post - I'm thinking a wooden post might 
> not be a great dielectric (tree sure wasn't) and might lead to some 
> burning. Anybody tackled that problem?
>
> I do have some of the 4' military mast sections (mine are aluminum not 
> fiberglass though) but I think they'll get pretty floppy over 15-20' 
> or so w/o some guying...
>
> Neighbor mentioned being open to draping a wire over his house if it 
> helped.... but I think more useful would be expanding the radial field 
> throughout his backyard... haven't broached that subject. He might be 
> less excited about that.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 5:35 AM, Dave Riley <dave.riley3 at verizon.net 
> <mailto:dave.riley3 at verizon.net>> wrote:
>
>     Hello Ben,
>
>     Can you give us more info concerning your real estate plot such as
>     square footage, relationship to power lines, existing antennas,
>     size and height of your home, any neighbors who would allow you to
>     span their property, or any obstructions that would be in the way
>     of an antenna and lastly what you have for antennas for ham use at
>     this time?
>
>     Are you presently using any sort of loop or probe antenna for receive?
>
>     All the answers to your quest so far sound workable so maybe a mix
>     or some kind of a modification could allow you to enjoy the new band.
>
>     Thanks from DaveR @ aa1a
>
>
>
>     On 2/4/2018 7:11 PM, Ben Gelb wrote:
>
>         My neighbor is taking down my antenna tree ... possibly this
>         week :(.
>
>         Its actually the right thing - the tree is very unbalanced and
>         needs to go. But it means my undersized antenna will be even
>         smaller (gone) soon...
>
>         Seems like I may need to try to get something in the air that
>         doesn't require a tree or permanent support structure. I can
>         probably fashion some kind of vertical pole out of cheap
>         materials, but imagine it will require a lot of guys to remain
>         vertical - which I'd kind of like to avoid since I don't have
>         a lot of room for guys.
>
>         Any suggestions from this group?
>
>
>
>
>
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