Recommendation: Military Surplus Aluminum Antenna Mast

[dbrescia]

SAR does indeed exist in NY....I'm still infinitely involved in a lot of the radio side...Feel free to PM me directly if you'd like more info. I was just in your area before the end of the year working on a SAR radio site not far from you.

SAR in NYS is the same. All 501c3 organizations, grants or donations fund 90% and members normally fund the rest.

Oh and BTW...that pic of the mast setup by the trees was in Hector National Forest...Just SE of you !

Would love to learn more--thank you for offering! Tried to send you a PM, but the system would not let me. My wife also trains dogs in Agility, Rally and Tracking and was wondering if there were tracking clubs organizations you work with locally? She has a Golden that she's been working with that has a great nose and plenty of drive. Thanks!

 

[hornetd]

One item that I haven't seen mentioned here is that there is a version of the AB-155 mast that has 2 pivoting mast stubs on the stake.

What is truly marvelous about these is they allow you to use a half height mast from another kit or spare mast sections as a falling derrick. You measure all of the guys that will hold up the side of the mast being raised to one of the other guy stakes, tie the guy lines and a pull down rope to the tip of the falling derrick, raise the falling derrick up and drop it onto the second pivoting mast section stub, pull the falling derrick down until the mast is straight up; a surveyor's rod level is really helpful for getting the mast plumb; If you have set the length of the three other guy directions carefully then they will be close to the correct length and not require much adjustment. The 20 foot length of the falling derrick provides a much better angle of effort on the mast itself. There is no need to walk the mast up to get raising started. The pull on the guy lines by the tip of the falling derrick does much of the work. This technique also reduces the number of persons needed to raise the mast to 2.

Although I would not recommend this as a routine practice I have been able to raise the full 40 feet of mast with a whip adapter and 15 feet of MS-116 antenna whip on it and the insulating section scavenged from AB-86 mast kits at the base. By removing any aluminum oxide from the outside of the swages and the inside of the mast section bases using wire brushes or emery cloth and then applying a light coating of Anti-OX, Noalox, or Ox-Gard conductive aluminum anti oxidizing paste to the mast section joints you turn the mast into a very effective vertical antenna. When used with a remote automatic antenna coupler at the base of the mast and 4 above ground radials from the ground connector of the antenna coupler the mast will cover 160 to 6 meters very well. We have used that assembly repeatedly for field exercises and outdoor events with great results.

Tom Horne

 

[niceguy71]

The orange tripod adapter shown above is completely wrong, the mast should never go through the adapter to the ground and should end at the adapter. When the mast goes to the ground you loose much of the weight on the tripod legs and its less stable. This type of tripod adapter is not the original mil version. If you can modify that adapter so the mast stops at the adapter you will not only gain about 5ft of height, the weight of the mast and antenna on the tripod legs will make it more stable.

Here is one of my mil mast setups with original mil tripod adapter at a Baker to Vegas race comm area.

View attachment 134876

looks great! I may be interested in that kind of set up.

 

[dbrescia]

I have CAD-drawn and CNC re-manufactured the two aluminum plates that make up the tripod adapter and cut up two mast sections to make the additional pieces required to be TIG welded to the plates. Avoided crimps used in original USA version and all joints are TIG welded on both sides of each plate. Another difference is a swaged section (swage up) of mast is welded in the center thereby ensuring the tripod legs have all the weight transferred to ground. Bottom tripod plate has added holes from which extra weight may be hung if desired. Primary guying is translated through a single 3-hole guy ring at top of mast down to three 20-inch back stays purchased from Penninger Radio (very high quality). From the back stays the three guy lines extend straight down through the tripod and terminate to a small HDPE trash can filled with almost 200 lbs of concrete. The trash can has a 2-inch wide, double layer HD nylon strap the goes around the can circumference. Three additional nylon straps provide the connectivity between the weight and the guys. Obviously at 200-pounds plus weight for the can and concrete weight, this is not intended to be a portable design. My intent is to use as semi-permanent setup and I have two of these at 30 feet high. I am having another another set of tripod base plates CNC cut and bent so I can have one portable version. Middle of rain storm here so pictures to be posted of the tripod as soon as possible.