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All Things Ham Radio
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Topic starter
26/02/2025 10:19 pm
I seem to have a thing for making antennas and poles out of whatever I have on hand at the time to make a few contacts. I'll add some photos to start but would love to see others' junk-drawer antennas or scrap-yard support poles. Please share and tell us about your setup!
I'll start with my setup for Field Day 2020. For 2020 I decided to host a private field day at my parents' farm. The orange pole is my telescopic pole I'm using for POTA holding an inverted V at the time. The silver poles was a bunch of leftover pop-up tent poles stacked end to end to make about 30 - 40 feet. The sections were only about 4 feet long, supported by tarred bank line that wasn't very thick. These things was floppy and bendy and barely stayed up, but they lasted long enough to hold a 40 meter end fed. We ran on generator power from the tent, complete with campfire and Hobo Pockets for chow. I don't remember how many contacts we made but we were happy. Use what ya got, but stay safe!
73
W8SBL
Topic starter
26/02/2025 10:22 pm
Another shot of the far pole. It was ready to fall by the next morning. I'm not trying to promote unsafe practices here, we were very cautious with this thing. But sometimes it's interesting what you'll come up with to make that one rare contact!
Topic starter
26/02/2025 10:25 pm
Trying to contact Paul in Bainbridge on 6 Meters using a temporary pole made from different tent poles lol...
Topic starter
26/02/2025 10:29 pm
This was a tape measure 2 meter I had built with Dave K8DEG a long time ago. I popped it onto the tent poles and ended up contacting Paul KE8JEC in Bainbridge from Sinking Spring Rd on 2 meter simplex. We ran some SSTV on FM, and even got some SSTV in with Gary W8PU in Martinsville! The main problem I had was getting the darn thing to stop windvaning around since it was very windy that day.
