Low cost 30 foot mast?

Right now I've got a copper pipe 2m slim jim atop 20 feet of fence-top rail. It does almost everything I want it to do, but sometimes it's a little stretched to hit repeaters 25+ miles away. I'd like to add 10 more feet, but after 20 feet top-rail pipe gets too flexy.

Rohn makes several push-up masts in the 30'-40' range that are reasonably priced starting at $85, but the guy wire kits start at $160. I'm sure they're worth the money but still, ouch.

Are there any DIY plans for a 30' mast out there? I'm not looking to totally cheap out on this, but it's a huge jump from $20 for 20' to $250 for 30'. If the answer is to drop $250, I'll keep on using that 20' pipe. Anybody tackle this problem yet?

When you do hit them, is the receive signal plenty strong? You might improve your coax, ie more power to the antenna and not have to raise it at all!

But can you add another 10ft of top-rail pipe and do your own guying! Seems if you can guy a Rohn mast, you can guy another mast setup.

Sink two lengths of the 20 foot fence top rail into the ground a couple of feet. Concrete would probably be a good idea. Ground rod, too…

The spacing between those two rails should allow a third to fit in between.

Use some long 1/2 inch bolts to hold the third rail in the middle between the other two. If the first two rails are a couple of feet in the ground, and you had a few feet of overlap between the top and bottom rails, that should get you 30 feet. Getting everything level/plumb will take some work, but it should work just fine.

Also, you can use two 1/2" bolts, removing the lower one would allow the top section to be folded over to allow installation of the antenna.

The local railroad uses a similar type of mount.

Sort of like this:
Rapid Deployment Articulating Hinged Tilt Fold Down Poles.

Yeah, pretty much it's built up right, starting with LMR-400 coax. Transceiver is a Yaesu FT-2900, so I've got 75 watts to play with. Plenty of power, good coax, decent low take-off angle antenna... The next step is more height. Under most conditions I can reach these repeaters on 10 or 30 watts, but sometimes 75 watts isn't enough a few days after a cold front moves through.

Yes, it looks like it'll have to be guyed. Still looking for plans. Doesn't seem to be a lot in the middle ground between 20' of top rail and full-on towers. May end up designing something from scratch, but it'd be cool to find where somebody else has solved the problem.

A 30ft pushup mast sitting a foot in the ground and anchored to a roof at the 15 to 20ft range should hold up a J pole fine with no guy wires. Pushups usually come with guy rings attached so you would only need guy wire and turnbuckles which are available fairly cheap. Not sure why a Rohn guy wire kit would be so expensive.
prcguy

mmckenna said:

Sink two lengths of the 20 foot fence top rail into the ground a couple of feet. Concrete would probably be a good idea. Ground rod, too…

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Hmmm, yeah, that's interesting. Could put a simple pull-cord on the bottom of the top piece to lever things up...

A cheap mast tower:
PVC Tube Ham Radio Tower Project - YouTube

and then after Hurricane Sandy went through:
PVC Mast - Hurricane Sandy - YouTube

fyi, not me in the video

Yeah, PVC is useless for anything over about 10'. Doubly so here at Katrina ground zero.

PrimeNumber said:

Yeah, PVC is useless for anything over about 10'. Doubly so here at Katrina ground zero.

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Anything you put up would be useless at Katrina ground zero....no matter how much money you spend on it.

One way I have made masts in the past is out of metal electrical conduit pipe. You can buy it at any hardware store. It comes in a few different widths. I think 2.5" is the one I usually get. It comes in 10 or 12 foot lengths I think. So I would buy a few of those and then buy the matching U bolts for that size. Using 2 U bolts to clamp together each section. So each section overlaps a foot or so to get a good solid clamp. Of course these U bolts can be tightened as tight as you want them with a ratchet. So tight you can start to bend the conduit. Then most commercial made antennas also perfectly clamp onto the 2 or 2 and half inch conduit with a U bolt. If you wanted to use guy wires then just buy some steel wire. Or even rope is fine. But really if it is only 30 feet or so you do not need to guy it if the bottom has some support on the fence or whatever. I am sure some kind of fence poles would work too. But for me I have always just used the electrical conduit. It is strong enough for small vertical antennas.

n4yek said:

Anything you put up would be useless at Katrina ground zero....no matter how much money you spend on it.

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Not so true. Although flooding destroyed the W5GAD (Jefferson Amateur Radio Club) clubhouse, the tower was fine. There were some damage to the antennas but none to the tower itself.

Photos | Jefferson Amateur Radio Club (JARC)

Another thing I wanted to mention is do not worry about all this talk of storms damaging antennas. Making antennas and putting them up is a learning experience. So if your antenna does come down in a storm you will know how to get it back up. And no matter what happens you can always make a simple wire dipole for ANY frequency you want and string it up to the best of your ability in a pinch. So it is great to keep materials like wire, coax, pieces of masting around so that you have something to work with when necessary. Just put it up and see what happens.

The challenge is to have something that I can bring down and stow safely as the winds are picking up. Will post when I come up with a design that fits.

PrimeNumber said:

The challenge is to have something that I can bring down and stow safely as the winds are picking up. Will post when I come up with a design that fits.

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I have similar considerations for a mast I want to put up next spring. I found these two sites - telescoping crank-up/down masts that you can build:

Irrigation Pipe Antenna Mast

Telescoping Home Antenna Mast

What I'd really like to do is combine this neat crank-up/down idea with a tilt-over feature that can be used when the mast is cranked all the way down.

If either, or both, of the gentlemen who posted those sites are on this message board, I want to thank you for your ideas!

Thanks guys. Still waiting for this shoulder to heal up (mountain bike accident, darnit) but will get with designing and constructing something in a few weeks. Will post how it all comes together, when it all come together.

PrimeNumber said:

Thanks guys. Still waiting for this shoulder to heal up (mountain bike accident, darnit) but will get with designing and constructing something in a few weeks. Will post how it all comes together, when it all come together.

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Hope that shoulder gets well, injuries like that can be painful.

n5ims said:

Not so true. Although flooding destroyed the W5GAD (Jefferson Amateur Radio Club) clubhouse, the tower was fine. There were some damage to the antennas but none to the tower itself.

Photos | Jefferson Amateur Radio Club (JARC)

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Well yea, if you want to spend around $200,000 dollars to put up a tower like that then it probably would survive.

Doesn't necessarily have to be metal: 4X4 to make tilt over mast/tower