One of the most problematic Things in HAM Radio these days is the Antennasituation. In Cities you hardly are allowed to mount your Antennas and even if you live in your own house its often prohibited to mount an Antenna to get on the air.
I live on the Countryside where people hav other problems than the look of an Antenna so that was not an Issue. The most problem was to convince my Girlfriend.
Here you need to get the right tactic. I said i need a 15m metal mast with a miltiband beam mounted on Top in the Backyard. I them showed her some pictures of really nice antennas.
She was mich happier then when i said it would only be a 3m pole mounted on the rooftop with a wire antenna. 🙂
I had different ideas about the mast. I wanted a non conductive mast mounted on the roof that could be tilted down if needed.
In germany i found a company that sells fiberglass poles at a giod prize. I ordered a 60x40x3000mm fiberglass tube.
After i received it i noticed that this tube way too strong for my need but its good if i want to mount a small yagi antenna or a rotor for satellite communication.
I painted the tube eith spraypaint and i climbed on the roof to make a plan.
I found a wooden beam that is mounted under the roof and i decided this woold be the spot where i mount my mast.
I did not want to drill holes in the beam so i decided that i would make 2 metall plates that i can clamp on the beam. The plates were bend on the edges to get some strengh. I also welded some reinforcement on the plates.
For the tilt mechanism i took a look at a flagpole at our company. This was a good way to do it. Invan now adjust the angles of the pole and lay it down.
After spraypainting everything we climbed on the roof again for mounting the brackets. It was quite a work because everything was very tight.
After an hour or so we mounted the brackets and the mast itself.
We used some 35mm2 copper wire to wire the mast to the lightning rod.
After that we mounted the 2m/70cm sntenna on top of the mast and the 5band HyEndFed antenna on its side.
For lightning protection we installed a lightning arrestor for each Antenna and used some self vulcanizing tape to seal the connections.
I laud the coax under the tiles and put them through the hole in the wall of my shack.
This was a good day.
I measured the SWR of my HF Antenna and it was quite ok. I thought it would be worse because the antenna is quite near the grounded roof ends.
Now my Shack is operational. There ist still alot of work to do but the main work is done.
Best wishes
Hans