I have used two of the Radio Shack 40? telescoping masts for about a year
and a half ? one supporting a small Cushcraft 2-El. Tri-bander and rotor,
the other supporting a rotary dipole and rotor, along with various wire
antennas. While these are not designed to support this kind of load, I have
them well guyed. The beam mast is free standing ? a 4? piece of PVC pipe is
cemented in the ground. I installed a bolt running through it down near the
bottom of the PVC and put a ?Vee? notch in the bottom of the base section of
the mast that interlocks over the cross-bolt ? just to keep the whole thing
from spinning. I am using 4 guys at each ring, including the top. The guys
I am using are ¼? Dacron rope ? all pulled relatively taunt. They provide a
little bit of ?give? but seem to provide a lot of support. I?ve watched
this thing dance around in some fairly strong storms, mostly straight-line
winds. One mistake I made was trying to push it up without having enough
people available to keep it straight ? a breeze just about took the whole
thing over. Somehow, we got it stabilized enough to tie it off ? but my
beam was not too many degrees off of being vertically polarized! In your
case, even pushing up the 50? mast by itself, I would have 3 or 4 helpers
supporting it by the guys as you push it up ? The top two sections get
pretty whippy.
The other mast with the rotary dipole is bracketed to the garage peak at
about 18 feet, so I do not have as many guys on it, but I do have some.
Both of these antennas are light weight and the rotors I am using are
light-duty TV.
For attachment to the guy rings, I used small threaded links in the rings
and tied off to them ? with the rope having some ?give?, I think it takes
some of the strain off of the links, but guying with rigid wire might well
over stress them. As I said, this isn?t an ideal application but so far I
have been lucky. I plan to put up a tower this Spring, and hopefully the
telescoping masts can be put to a more appropriate use. I certainly
wouldn?t think your 1? x 1? panel array would present much of a problem, as
long as you have it guyed properly. Good luck!
73?s,
John K0JJH
_______________________________________________
See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless Weather
Stations", and lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any questions
and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
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