Eddie,
I finally got to the astroplane, made a fiberglass isolator last night & started assembling it today,
mine is a little different to the instructions, I'm guessing its an A/S era antenna, tube looks and feels like 6061-t6,
the old astroplane afaik had the upper basket tubes expanded to take the lower tubes, mine has straight tubes & the lower tubes swaged to fit inside,
when fully pushed together they measure 94"
the original will be the same since it has about the same overlap,
its a stupid setup mechanically, the lower tubes should fit over the upper tubes & the spreader should clamp onto the lower tubes to support them,
avanti lacked mechanical aptitude in most if not all of their base antennas.
The upper 1/4wave tube is 48"
