[TowerTalk] HomeBrew TiltPlate

[Richard (Rick) Karlquist]

I have posted photos of my homebrew tiltplate at:

http://www.n6rk.com/monstilt/monstilt.html

I basically copied NN4ZZ.  He wasn't selling them at the time.
At this time, I'd recommend buying his plate.
The piano hinge concept didn't seem to make sense for a MonstIR.
If you come up with a design that works, please let us know about it.

I did build a light duty tilt plate using door hinges (piano style).
We used it on Field Day to put up a 204BA 4 element 20 meter beam.  It 
worked fine, but was a fair weather solution.  If there is sufficient
interest in the Field Day design, I'll try to put that up on the
web site.  A mechanical drawing of it is available.

I added a latch of my own design to the MonstIR tilt plate to keep the 
beam level when the wind blows.  I operate the latch from the
ground with a 20 ft pole.  Photos are up on my web site.

Rick N6RK


Terry G. Glagowski wrote:
> Has anyone ever built their own homebrew TiltPlate similar to what NN4ZZ makes
> described here?
> http://nn4zz.com/tiltplate.htm 
> Maybe REAL contesters don't use crank-up / tilt-over towers, but I do!
> I would envision a less exorbitant version consisting of a couple of
> mast-to-boom plates joined with a heavy duty piano type hinge.  The top plate
> would be fastened to the tower mast, the lower one to the antenna boom.
> As the tower tilts over, the antenna stays horizontal due to gravity.
> Any ideas or caveats to this?  Using materials from McMaster-Carr, one could be
> built for between $50 and $100 (or more) depending on how heavy duty you would
> like to go.  (1/4" or 3/8" aluminum plate, and 3/16" thick stainless piano hinge
> 1 ft long)
> 
> Terry / W1TR
> 
> 
> 
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