Well a long time back I wanted to put up a simple mast with one
small Yagi on top for 2 meters but it all got out of
hand a bit. All I had was some lengths of water pipe and some bits aluminium tubing
for a centre shaft. Fortunately the long water pipe had a thread on both ends
and I was able to get the local garage to weld on old wheel bearing on to a
pipe joiner which screwed onto the end of the pole.
An old TV mast clamp and U-bolts locked the shaft on to the top
bearing. Same thing at the bottom worked as a brake.
Well it all worked for a while but it was a pain to operate on a
wet and windy night
so I had to get a rotator. That's when the trouble began!
NEW AND IMPROVED POLE
I still did not have access to a welder so when I came into
possession of some real water pipe at great expense, I had to work out how to
put it all together and be reasonably
safe. One of my ham friends had his wooden pole between two uprights so
he could tilt it over so that was the way to go. The tilt point is the problem.
To maintain the pole (pipe) strength, I did not want to drill a pivot hole thru
it. I found a steel box section that did the trick nicely.
The two upright poles have spacers bolted between them and it does
not greatly affect the overall bending strength.
With my new KR-5600 rotator on top it was getting a bit heavy to
pull back up with a rope
so it needed a bit of a
counter balance.
Yep! I finally purchased a cheap welder at this stage. I still
like U-Bolts. You would have noticed all the cable going up the pole. Here is
what!s on top.
