Hi Everyone,
It has been quite a while since I have been by to visit. My wife died last May and everything went pretty much on hold while I tried to sort my life out. I must admit that my ham radio community was here when I needed them. They encouraged me to do field day and go to a remote island for Salmon Run (Washington State QSO contest). These activities really helped me focus on things other than what I was going through. This is off topic so I will continue with something more on topic.
The feature article in the June 2011 was "A One Person, Safe, Portable and Easy to Erect Antenna Mast" This article featured a tripod bracket that was used with the Military Camo Poles, which I sell at local hamfests. It was telling about a person on ebay who was selling these tripods, so I bought one from him.
In June, a month after my wife died, my friends talked me into taking my trailer to Fort Flagler and go camping for a week. This location is where my club does their field day. I was camping next to Fred and Robin Lloyd's Motor Coach, the QRZ Fred. For the week I was on the air with my Super Antenna YP-3 on top of Heavy Duty Aluminum Poles that I sell. I was using the tripod I bought on ebay. For the legs I was using 6 light duty aluminum poles, the ribbed ones with the reinforcement ring. I used two poles per leg which put the tripod bracket at about 5 foot. The heavy duty aluminum pole with the antenna attached was inserted in the center hole of the tripod before the second set of legs were put on. I then proceeded to lift up the mast and inserted the next section then raised the second section and inserted the third section etc. I was doing all of this by myself with no help. I was not using guy lines so I only raised the antenna about 25 feet. At night before retiring to bed I went out and lowered the antenna to sit on top of the tripod at the 5 foot height. I could raise and lower the antenna in about 5 minutes. One thing I noticed was that as the antenna got almost up to height the tripod bracket tended to lift out of the legs slightly but I reseated the legs and continued. Everyone who saw it was really impressed.
I contacted a local fab shop to make up a few for my friends and to sell with my poles. They made them out of steel and improved the design by adding locking bolts to lock the legs into the tripod bracket.
A couple of us guys set up a portable operation on Orcas Island for the Salmon Run (Washington State QSO Contest) We used my poles and tripods for the antenna masts.
This is the Super Antenna YP-3 on 20 meters with rotor on the portable tripod mast. You will notice we used guy ropes. The wind always blows on Orcas Island and we needed stability, also note the ground was not flat where we raised the antenna. I have been thinking of making one adjustable leg with pins to compensate for uneven ground. The yellow tripod bracket is the one that I bought on ebay.
This is the portable tripod mast used with the 80 meter and 40 meter dipoles. We used a fiberglass pole for the top section of the mast and aluminum sections for the rest. The 80 meter dipole was run north/south and the 40 meter dipole was run east/west. We only had these dipoles at about 20 feet, we were trying to lift the dipole antennas and coax with the mast, it gets dern heavy and it was all two of us could do to raise it. The antennas worked very well at that height though. We found out later that they were acting as NVIS antennas, and we were trying to work all 39 counties in Washington State. Next time though we will take advantage of a couple of pulleys and some rope.
One of my friends went to be with his sick mother and wanted to set up a temperary station. Here is his set up using the tripod mast.
These tripods are very easy to fabricate if you have the equipment or have them made up at your local fabricating shop.
In my opinion this is a safe and easy way to deploy your antennas for field day, when camping, or if you are retired and want something simple to throw up when traveling. If you live in a community that has covenants this is a great way to pop your antenna up for a while and then lower it down below the fence line.