A New Mast? Maybe … Hurdles First

Now that we’re in our new house in Tooele, Utah, getting the radios up and operational are a bit of a priority, obviously behind getting moved in and settled, but pretty high.

One of the criteria for where we were going to build the house was to free of an Home Owners Association or any other CC&R’s. That was successful. So, the first antenna up was a hamstick dipole set for 20 meters. It’s up on military poles at the side of the house, with a 2meter / 70cm j-pole on top. The hamsticks were nicely resonant on 20 meters … until they were up at 20′. They are now resonant a fair bit above 20 meters. Dang.

I hired a local satellite dish installer to come over and put up a G5RV Jr. antenna across the peak of the roof. That antenna is almost directly east and west, meaning it’s lobes are north and south. When it is working, the antenna goes very nicely into Canada…. However, the ladder line comes down from the antenna and then down the roof. It worked pretty well until we got winter. There’s now a foot of snow on the roof burying the ladder line and the SWR is through the roof. As long as there’s snow, I’m back to using the non-resonant hamsticks. Not a great situation.

So, I decided to put up a full-sized G5RV antenna stretching from the peak of the house on the west side to the back of the yard on the southeast side. The antenna would barely fit and would line up approximately north-north west to south-south east. A good orientation. With that, I did a lot of research and designed a fold-over mast to put up in the middle of the back yard where the apex of the G5RV would be up at 35′, about as high as I could get it.

So, the next step was to determine if there were any hoops at City Hall I needed go navigate. Unfortunately, there was. The city planner didn’t like my engineering. Even though it would never fall on any one else’s property and was not a fire hazard, he required “real engineering”. So, that’s what’s happening now. I’ve engaged an engineering firm. It’ll cost twice as much to get the engineering done as to actually build the mast.

And, of course, winter has finally arrived. The three-foot hole in the back yard is full of snow. I won’t be able to do anything before April. Dang again.