The mast is a 14-foot fishing pole from Cabelas that collapses down to 15.5 inches. I'm still working on the actual antenna. It will be a shortened halfwave.

Below is a photo of all the parts, dissasembled.  At the top is the Cabelas pole, followed by a 5/8" wood dowel that the pole slides down onto. It is a bit smaller than both the pole's inside diameter and the PVC pipe, so I wrapped it with some blue masking tape. All of the PVC is 1/2",  but not 'schedule 40'. It is a thin-wall version marked 'Silver-Line 1120'. I have only found it locally at Lowes Hardware. The top two PVC sections are the vertical riser. Next are the three 'tees'. Below them are the two pieces  that make the cross bar for the letter 'H' of the base. The bottom four sections make up the legs. The threads of each coupler make for a snug fit, and allow adjustment for any terrain. This same idea could be adapted to any size of tubing for larger antenna supports.

* Because I used threaded adapters, I could fill the whole base with water for additional ballast on those really windy days!

The whole support weighs two pounds, plus another five ounces for the mast (And nothing longer than 16").


Here is a closeup of  how the dowel is fitted to the PVC riser. Eight inches down the tube I drilled a 1/4" hole through both sides and glued in a 1/4" wood dowel. This prevents the larger dowel from sliding down too far.


Credit goes to John Reisenaur, KL7JR, for introducing me to the PVC, H-base idea in a USIsland article.




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