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Sunday, June 16, 2013

Another way hang a C-Pole

When winter turns into summer I usually take down my 80 meter antenna and put it away. This year Beth was flexible enough to let me leave the mast in place and hang my 20 mtr C-Pole from it.

So far it has worked out well. I've only had this up for a couple of months but it's been through 16" of snow, record amount of rain, thunder storms, wind...it hasn't come down yet.

The mast is made from six sections of military surplus 4' fiberglass poles. These are the ones made to support camouflage netting and have a reinforcing ring at one end. They fit together pretty tight. There's no need to bolt sections together.

I just run the C-Pole antenna top spreader up the pole like a flag. It sways a little in the wind but does not twist around enough to be a problem

The bottom spreader is hooked to the top of the balun (http://w0vlz.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-balun-for-phased-c-poles.html ) . The balun is captured by the conduit hanger it sits on top of.

The antenna is mounted approximately 16' from the house and only a few inches from the deck railing but at QRP power levels has not been a problem.

I didn't use any guys, just a clamp to the deck railing approx 10' off the ground and a hinged clamp staked in to the ground. (The radials in the photo are left over from an earlier antenna project and just left there.)