[TowerTalk] Sidemount Clearance Diagram

[Stan or Patricia Griffiths]

I get a lot of questions from hams asking if their antenna
will clear the tower if it is sidemounted on one of Custom
Metalworks sidemounts.  I have put a sidemount clearance
diagram on our web page to answer this.  Go to
<www.reprise.com>, click on "Antronics", click on "Custom
Metalworks", click on "sidemount clearance diagram" and you
will see it.

The diagram tells you how much clear boom space you must
have on either side of the boom to the arm mounting point.
In general, even numbered element monobanders work best
since they generally have sufficient clearance at the boom
mounting point.  There are exceptions to this, however,
since some monobanders like KLM's  do not have an even
distribution of element spacing on the boom.  Also, I once
had a small 3 element tribander mounted on a sidemount and I
mounted the boom quite far off center to get the required
element-to-tower clearance.  To take most of the "twist" out
of the arm due to the off center antenna, I trussed the
heavy end up to a second sidemount arm about 5 feet above
the one the boom was mounted on.  Of course, you have to
have a sidemount with two arms to do that.  Is there a
demand for a model like that?  We could build it . . .

Stan  w7ni@teleport.com


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