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Here's my homebrew 30 meter full quarter wave vertical
I built the stand from old redwood that I got from taking apart an old deck I built many years ago. You can drag the antenna anywhere. There are no holes to dig and no concrete to buy and pour. The stand is plenty stout to handle the 23.5 foot aluminum vertical element. I had the aluminum and the wood and only had to spend a few dollars for some hardware and.
UPDATE 10/16/07
Scroll down below the 30 meter antenna pictures and see my 17 meter "sorta
vertical" that I mounted on the side of this mount.
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| ABOVE A full view of the homebrew vertical
and stand. The upside down table at the left is there to keep someone
from running over my radial stake. The vertical radiator is light and the
stand is more than adequate to withstand the gale-force winds we sometimes
get out here on Hillbilly Hill. My 50 foot tower in the background
next to the house supports my triband rotatable dipole and two 2-meter beams...one vertical and one horizontal. It also supports my 80-160 meter fan dipole and a 40 meter delta loop, along with my B&W multiband folded dummy load...er I mean inverted vee. I just ordered a Diamond Discone antenna for satellite stuff so it will probably be going on the tower soon also. |
ABOVE The vertical aluminum driven element is placed into the schedule 40 plastic pipe. the coax is attached to it at the bottom. The shield is soldered to the four radials. The radials attach at a common point on an eye bolt screwed into the 4x4. The vertical element rests on a plastic PVC pipe I cut in half. The center conductor attaches to the vertical element with a solder lug and a machine screw. A long machine screw goes through the PVC pipe and through the vertical radiator to keep it from twisting in the PVC holder. |
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| ABOVE A close-up view of the stand. It's made from scrap redwood. The 4x4's are fir. They are NOT in the ground. It just looks like it. The entire stand is free-floating. Pull up the ground rod and radials and it can be moved anywhere. This prevents the need for any concrete or digging holes. For heavier antennas you could attach 4z8 plywood sheets to the underneath of the stand and fill it in with gravel, dirt or sand. Just a thought. | ABOVE A view of the antenna and stand from a few feet away. You can't see the radials but they are there. There are four of them spaced 90 degrees apart and about a 10 to 15 degree slope. The antenna has about a 1.2-1 SWR on 30 meters. Notice the trees in the background. Does it look like the wind is blowing? It is as is usually the case out here. They have a permanent lean to the east from the prevailing winds out of the west. |
 UPDATE
10/16/07 |
BELOW While I'm showing you my homebrew 30 meter vertical, you can look below and see my Hustler mobile whip I mounted on my deck. I have three radials wound and hidden through the woodwork. I bring my Icom 718 and gel-cell battery out to the picnic table on the other side of the wall and enjoy operating outside. I run about 25 watts and work the US and Canada. See the little metal clip in about the middle of the stinger on the whip? I can move that up and down and extend the usable bandwidth without the need of loosening the stinger and moving it in and out. Very handy...surprised someone didn't think of that before. I have coming a 20 meter hamstick to match with one I already have and a dipole mount to use the hamsticks in a dipole configuration. I will mount the resulting dipole to a tripod for use as a portable station. I'll let you know how that turns out.
