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A new antenna project...

Oatmeal

Active Member
Mar 22, 2009
484
78
38
West Virginia..
I live in a trailer park, and also have one across the road from me, this is why my antenna has been back on the mountain all these years, until last November, when a forrest fire whipped it all out, so now I have my antenna up here at the shack...its against my back porch in the corner of my porch, and its about 12ft away from the power lines, but its not going to fall on its own.....I don't like it been there, but its the only place I have for it right now..

But Im in the process if making plans to move it over on the front side of my trailer.....this will put me 26-28ft away from the lines...I know that's still a little close, but have no plans on letting it fall...

So heres what I have in mind doing....

Heres what I came up with, getting me a 3ft piece of 3" steel pipe, and dig a hole and drop this pipe in the ground and run cement around it, and leave maybe around 6" sticking up..

Then go with a 21ft joint of 2" steel pipe, and drop some inside the 3" pipe and this will allow me to have 18ft above the ground, in which I will use a brace up around 10-11ft on the side of my trl, have a nice steel brace and clamps for this.....

Then get me a 10ft joint of 1" steel pipe, and drop about 3 or 4ft inside the 2" pipe and drill a couple holes through the pipes and bolt them together...and put my Imax and choke on the mast pipe.......not going to use any guy wires, don't plan on been but somewhere around 23-25ft off the ground..

Im looking into setting it up this way, so maybe going to a 4 ele beam....
Not a 100% sure yet tho, just something Im kicking around, see how the neighbors react to this first actually...

May change out the 2" pipe and go to some 1.5" pipe, and then to the 1" pipe...then the Imax and choke....because I know a 3 ele Maco will except a 1.5" mast pipe....will be Galv pipe also...
Yea if I go with the 1.5" pipe, Ill change to a smaller pipe to go in the grd and cement too...

Reason I mentioned using the 2" pipe here was due to maybe going with a 4 ele Maco later, but think a 3 ele would be better in my situation...

But this is what I have in mind doing, mostly concerned how the neighbors are going to react.....

Guess if I went to the 1 1/2" pipe, the 1" would slide inside it, if I go with ID pipe, right ?.......
 

Go talk to the office first before wasting time and money. Chances are the day after you put it up you will be forced to take it down. I use a stand salvaged from a temporary construction road sign that I have a mast on and I stake the 4 corners with 2 foot threaded rod in the ground about 20 inches. I put the stand legs on the threaded rod and use wing nuts to secure it while in use and when done I lay it down. I put my patio table over the threaded rods when not in use for safety. Hope this idea helps you. By the way I am now using a aluminum telescopic flagpole as my mast it goes to 22'.
 
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If I were you I would move if your planing on running some power like a 2 to 4 pill amp you will case interferance with everyone within 500ft. Now if you go stock with good coax and tuned antenna you should be ok if your allowed to run a antenna
 
Heres is a update on this...
Went out and did the measuring ect on this...

From where I was looking to put my antenna at it would be 20ft 3" away from the power lines....this would be in the center of the peak of my roof.............

And if I put it on the front side it would be around 26ft from the lines, in which I don't plan oh going to high later with a beam....and it will most likely be a Maco 3 ele......only thing about it been out front is, a beam may hang over closer to the neighbors out there, not sure Id like this....im sure they wouldn't...

This is the reason Im looking at putting my antenna in the center of the peak of my roof, on over a few more feet, and around 23ft from the lines....would allow more room for the reflector to hang out toward the lines when swung into the west direction...

But to start off with I plan on running my Imax 2k for awhile....to see how the neighbors react to it...

You guys, who has the room, don't no how lucky you are when it comes to fooling with our hobby and the antennas, ect..
 
If you live in a trailer park anything other than a barefoot base will wipe out everything in the park.
Key up a 2x4 while your neighbor is on the toilet will probably shock the sheet out of them.
 
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I read about someone doing this at a mobile home park.

First, have a female friend of yours call anonymously to the office like she's wanting to maybe move into the park and wants to know if she can have a CB antenna.

If the answer is ''NO!" - then make one, a stealth version from a 1-2 section guyed TV telescoping mast plus a 10' piece of gray PVC added to the top and painted with non-metallic primer gray to match the same paint you should put on the rest of the mast so it all looks the same.

Put an 8' 8" piece of wire up inside the PVC top piece and attach it to the center of the coax (going up inside the bottom of the mast from your radio,) making sure to keep that wire insulated from the mast or ground/shield of the coax 'cause that's your antenna!

Then add 9' guy wire or even stranded copper wire radials (from the coax shield up inside the PVC) down to insulators then to whatever length you need to reach the roof, and you have just made a Starduster which will perform great!

If you put a cheap digital TV antenna on top it shouldn't bother the CB antenna wire inside the PVC mast, and then you can tell everybody it's only a TV antenna so they won't suspect you and force you to remove it when everyone begins getting bleedover.

You could even attach the top of the antenna wire to the TV antenna and simply shorten the wire until it tunes, it will act like a capacity hat.

Just stay on SSB and keep away from AM or they'll hear your voice clearly and know who it is! :oops:BUSTED!

Add small diameter non-metallic dacron line to guy the top where the TV antenna is so it all stays up nice and straight. Dacron won't interfere with the signal.

I'd also add some cheap Black vinyl or rubber non-metallic tubing to the outside of the mast up to the TV antenna to look like TV coax so it is convincing to anyone there on staff who knows about these things. :whistle:

Just sayin'... ;)
 
J Pole !

I made a J-Pole antenna from 450ohm line and put it
inside 2" pvc pipe sanded painted flat white and set
up as flag pole. Coax run just under sod ! We made
it 34' high working very well and no ones complaining.;)
 
No need to have someone call the office. If a trailer park allows antennas, then some rutter is gonna have one already.

It's also to test the attitude of the park manager.

I made a J-Pole antenna from 450ohm line and put it
inside 2" pvc pipe sanded painted flat white and set
up as flag pole. Coax run just under sod ! We made
it 34' high working very well and no ones complaining.;)

You got 34 feet of 2" PVC to stand up straight? Mind boggling.
 
Another option is a vertical dipole if you have a tree near by. Or even horizontal above the roof. I thought about using a swivel like what is used on a small trailer wheel and mounting that to the roof so that the antenna could be laid down against the house when not in use and use like 2 screw in hooks spaced out to support it when laid down. I agree with the above post that if you use ANY amp your going to regret it. I was using a Galaxy DX949 with a small 100 watt amp and a I-Max at my cottage and found out the hard way that I was coming through the offices amplified computer speakers. Luckily I was only asked to resolve the issue during business hours which meant no amp from 9am-6pm M-F. I have since sold that complete set up.
 

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