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I am looking to put up a antenna mast, as there are some freq's that I don't get at home well but would really like to bring in a little better. I am looking at a inexpensive RS ground plane antenna right now. What I am trying to do this as inexpensively as possible between mast and cables.

In the long run I am really trying to do is get the best bang for my buck, and still have something that isn't going to blow down in the first gust of wind. I am looking to try to get between 20-30', starting off a 3' deck and using that to secure it and would really rather not be on the roof as there are power lines to contend with there, the deck is out of the way of the lines.

After doing some research, and finding a few possibilities, I figured I would see what others have come up with.

I was looking at 2 chain link top rails with a connector in the middle, would put me up about 20'. But not sure how stable they might be.
http://bit.ly/cBzwbZ

Second question I guess, is that I live about 1000' from one of the county repeater sites, so I get 5 of 6 freq's, unfortunately one of the freq's I want is not on the repeater I live by, as its more localized further south. So in trying to bring in a distant freq's, am I going to overload the freq's that are coming from literally across the street?

Any ideas?

when I click on your link http://bit.ly/cBzwbZ I get a page for GRE scanner belt clip. even on a guy as tall as me it still would not add up to 20 feet. I would keep looking, Just kidding, bad link.

Crap, wrong URL into bit.ly... That could have been embarrassing :roll:

Try this...
http://bit.ly/damt3x

You might be on to something there, how will you mount it, I have a old 15 foot flag pole on my deck that I use with two u-bolts connecting it to a rail on my deck, don't forget the ground.
I use LMR-400 and a pro-comm spider antenna, it works ok for what I need.

Well I was going to use 2 u-bolts or some strapping... I would be grounding it off the bottom of the mast to a grounding rod with some copper grounding wire, thankfully the power used to come into the house about 3' away, and there is an abandoned grounding rod there...

You where talking about cost, the only thing that will kill your cost is the the cable, I belive for the LMR-400 it was around $1 a foot, let me look around real fast and see how much that has changed, I have had mine for about four years now. brb

Your going to need to look around for it, a quick look has it going for .80 to $3.50 a foot.

Yeah, I was actually thinking some RG6 quad shield, as I have heard a few people that use RG6 for receiving and love it, and I am looking at about a 50-60' run of cable with a 20-30' antenna...

RG6 works great but remember it doesn't work with standard PL259 reducers so be careful with weatherproofing.

An interesting alternative is LMR240 as it is low loss for medium length runs and fits in the larger RG59 reducer for the PL259.

The chainlink top rails work fine for short masts though you should consider guying it if you stack more than 2 or 3 of them. They should have a tapered end which helps with stacking.

I was looking at stacking 2 and guying them if needed. For cable was looking at RG6 with F's, and then adapters to get the the 259 and BNC. For the outdoor connections I was going to use some coax-seal or a similar product...

I am going to lose to much in the adapters?

Rich, your right the specs on the LMR-240 look great, I might have a new project in two weeks, get that antenna up higher.Thanks madhatter fence rails.
http://www.nr6ca.org/pdf/LMR240A.pdf

Less than 1/2 a db at higher frequencies, and thats on a bad day. Nothing to worry about.

I didnt click on the link but a cheap mast is a sat-TV mount, people huck them out all the time I collect them when ever I see them, on the top of my house I have 4 of them mounted with various things on them. best part I can mount on the back side of the house and you cant see them from the front keeps the xyl happy

also dont ever forget about PVC you can make some nice things with that for portable or temporary installs

_________________
If I had an antenna, I would; but I can only transmit on 160 meters.
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DE K7MHI

The link is chain link top rails at the Home Depot... 1 3/8" diameter, and 10' 6" Long, 17GA...and have a tapered end for a sleeve to link them together... They run $9.35/ea and $2.04 for the connectors at lowes... So 20' would be around $1.14/ft for mast material...

I once built a portable a flagpole for tailgating. I ended up using some black iron pipe (cheap and rigid) as the base. Then sleeved it w/ a few pieces of PVCwith the joints staggered at the center of the other joints. The joints did have a coupler on them as well, for quick Setup and tear down at the stadium I didn't glue joints. I did drill and lock together with bolt, lockwashers, and nuts. It held up pretty well with three flags. and SAT Dish (cause you gotta watch other games while tailgating). I think it was up 30' Easy to find in the parking lot.

I think I used 1.25" PVC and 1" pvc or something like it. go check out homer Depot and see what couplers fit inside what pipes.