Friday, April 10, 2020

UPDATE #2 - 'Poor Hams' Wooden Antenna Mast


This past winter right after the RAC Winter Contest an ice storm built up too much weight on my Off Center Fed Dipole antenna and the top 4 feet of my trusty wooden antenna mast snapped off.

Jump to Easter weekend about 3 months later, enough snow has melted that I convinced my wife and daughter to help me bring down the tilt over wood tower and reattach my OCF antenna to the top of the mast.

It was one of those activities where no one had the idea of stopping and taking a few pictures so I only have a few snaps of when the work was finished. Thanks to Curtis my neighbor for lending a hand as well.

After we were done I ran back inside the shack and quickly tuned a few spots on all the HF bands and everything is back to normal. So glad I can get back onto more of the HF bands again.

Note: I've always suspected that the top 4 feet of the original mast design would be the point most likely to fail and I was right. But it stood for 8 years before snapping in that winter ice storm. Today the antenna tilted back over exactly as designed and was not difficult work for the 4 of us involved, there was no real repair done as all I did was reattach the antenna to the new high point of the wooden mast and lifted it back up.




At the bottom is a modified copy of the build sheet I did 8 years ago when the antenna mast was first built. It notes the spot where the top section of the mast broke off in a winter storm. My suggestion now, shorten or remove this top section of the mast.

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