Tilt-Over Mast Project
When I moved QTH a short wile ago having to spend all my money on decorating and repairs for the new house, found myself looking for an inexpensive way to get a mast up and running for my VHF antennas, which could be easy tilted over to swap and change antennas if needed.
I came up with a simple idea of using two scaffold tubes, scaffold clamps and a length of rope, I was lucky enough to have a friend who made me two wall brackets, but you could do the same using a pair of T and K brackets which you can easy buy from mail order or any good CB or amateur radio shop. I also received all the tubes and brackets free from a friendly scaffolder, (honestly) in fact the most expensive items where a masonary drill bit and the 8 rawl bolts for the brackets and guy ropes.
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Bottom stop bar |
Top stop bar |
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Centre swivel clamp |
Scaffold clamps used. |
As you can see from the diagram there are two poles, one pole is fixed to the wall with homemade brackets, the secondary pole is secured to the fixed pole with 4 swivel clamps, clamp 1 at the bottom, clamp 2 at the centre to make the pole tilt and clamp 3 and 4 at the top for security.
A rope was connected to the top of the swivel mast, and can be quiet easy lowered and raised with the rope by hand with the rotator and antennas connected. I have fixed a horizontal stop bar at the top and bottom to stop the mast falling back the wrong way using two short lengths of pipe and fixed scaffold crossover clamps.
When the mast was lowered I connected my rotator, Beam and tri-band vertical antennas, I pulled the mast up by the rope, Then raped the rope around the bottom wall bracket to secure the mast while I fixed the bottom scaffold clamp in place. I could then climb the ladder and secure the top two clamps in place.
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Mast was lowered to fix rotator |
Then the antennas were fixed to the pole |
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When mast was raised I fixed the bottom clamp first to secure it, and then the top two clamps. |
When all clamps were in place I then fixed two guy ropes ether side. |
Since I have built the mast we have had 2 strong gale force winds and everything is still ok, I have worked a few good DX stations on 2M into Europe with 10 watts so it is performing ok even if the antennas are only about 10m high.
