More Wire Higher - Never a bad thing
Well, spring came. A natural reaction for a ham is "Time for an antenna project." My antenna was a 40 foot random end fed between a point 17 foot up on the side of my house to a cupola on the top of my garage. The garage end of the antenna pointed at the side of my neighbor's house. I couldn't help thinking a higher antenna would be better.
Any antenna project has constraints. I did not want to spend a lot of money. Also, I don't have a lot of time to devote to the hobby so a quick hit antenna upgrade was in order. This project met that criteria.
My antenna is a 40 foot random end fed antenna wire so I knew I did not need a heavy duty support. I also did not want to mess with guy wires and I knew the wife would not be fond of those either. I figured a light duty flagpole would be sufficient for my needs.
I found this flagpole on Amazon.com. Description: Gientan 30FT Telescopic Flag Pole. It is pretty sturdy, and has done the job so far.
The flagpole shows as unavailable when I checked May, 2020. However, there are other similar flagpoles available.
When telescoping the mast, you need to twist each element to secure it in place. I figured that was not a good long term solution. I drilled a 1/4 inch hole at the bottom of each mast segment and inserted a quick release T-Handle. I got the T-Handles from McMaster-Carr. There is more info in the reference section below.
The flagpole came with a PVC pipe segment. The instructions said to put the pipe segment in the ground and insert the flagpole in to the pipe segment. To me, this did not feel like a good long term solution. Setting the base in concrete seemed like a better idea.
I ended up drilling a hole for the PVC pipe in the top and bottom of a 5 gallon bucket. Alignment was easy, just drill the hole in the center of the lid and bottom of bucket. One last step was to cut a hole in the lid so I could scoop in the concrete.
There may be some folks out there not familiar with hole saws. The top picture is an 18 piece set I bought from Harbor Freight. I was fortunate that the outside diameter of the PVC pipe matched one of the hole saws.
Fill the five gallon bucket with concrete. It gets pretty heavy. Fortunately, my son-in-law was around for this step. It's not heavy at all when there is someone else to move it.
When it comes time to put the bucket in the ground, it is once again handy to have the son-in-law nearby.
I secured the mast to the eave at the peak of my garage with a Channel Master Heavy Duty Adjustable Eave Mount I bought from Home Depot.
Before the upgrade, the antenna was attached to the white cupola on top of the garage. I am happy with the extra height.
The first wire I put up was a single 12 gauge speaker wire. It was too heavy. The wire sagged and the mast deflected quite a bit towards the house. I replaced the wire with an 18 gauge speaker wire. No sag or mast deflection to speak of. It has held up well so far. We have had a few wind storms and the antenna is still up.
This was a quick, relatively easy project. I am pleased with how it came out.