Guy Wires For Portable 15.219 Systems

strong and non conductive

I use a portable basketball goal (without the backboard and rim and weight the base with either water or sand (I have two, one with sand which is real heavy, one with water that I fill up everytime)...normally I don't use guy wires, but in high wind situations I use poly/fiberglass cord with a tensile strength of about 65 pounds...hope this helps!

Those are very good suggestions.

I wouldn't use a fabric or organic fiber type string or rope because they will retain moisture which could effect tuning, and if they freeze, the guys might become brittle and snap.

Here's a PHOTO of a temporary setup I used for a test. The line was kevlar conduit pull rope which I salvaged from a trash pile after workers installed fiber optic cable in my area. The lines were tied off to nearby trees and fastened to the antenna with a hose clamp. Setup and teardown was quick and easy.

Neil

By the way, I hadn't
used my SS-Tran AMT-3000
for a while.

I fired it up and went out
into the driveway and listened
to it on the car radio.

Wow. Did it sound good!

This project and all others
are continuing.

Bruce,
W 60 HZ, X-13

How about just a base for the 3 meter antenna and coil fashioned from wood. Two pieces of 1x3 wood could be joined in a cross using a cross half-lap like this: . A single removable screw could hold them together and allow disassembly.

If the 1x3s are long enough, you won't need guys for a portable setup. I think the 1x3s would need to be somewhere between 4 and 8 ft long. If it blows over, just set it back up again.

You could mount the transmitter box and coil just slightly off center on one of the 1x3s. Prefab the radials so they can be unrolled and laid out in a few minutes. No ground rod would be needed for a temporary install.

Yes, I will think about your
suggestion with the wood.

That's a very good idea.

My only hang up is lack of
eyesight, which could get
in the way.

Recovering from eye surgery
at age 13, I did time in the
wood shop at Sedgwick Junior
High in the fall of 1967.

I tried to make a shelf for my
Dad. It was very simple - it
had a top and bottom shelf,
with sides and a back. I figured
I could put it in his garage.

As I planed it and stained it and
sanded it and straightened it and
kept doing that over and over and over -
trying to get it right - it kept getting
smaller and smaller and smaller. After a long
time, it went from being a shelf, to being
a little wooden box.

My Dad stored his car keys in it.

I will still look into the idea with
the wood, though, Phil.

Best Wishes,
Bruce, AM 1020 Carrier Current and
13.560 MHz Experimental

"How about just a base for the 3 meter antenna and coil fashioned from wood."

Great suggestion! However even that wouldn't hold up out here in Wyoming where the average windy day is 30+ mph at ground level, with gusts often reaching above 60. Either the whole thing would topple over, or the radiator ripped from that base assembly.

It can get so bad out here that they have state regulations that prevent you from driving your top heavy center loaded truck and camper or loaded trailer on the state roads.

18 wheeler haulers going up and down I-80 have to pull over and wait out the wind otherwise they can find themselves belly up like a drunken dinosaur or pulled over by state highway patrol and get a ticket and hefty fine.

They don't call it "Windy Wyoming" for nothing!

RFB

I used a 5 gallon bucket (empty drywall compound bucket) filled with sand.

Plenty heavy and deep enough to push the pipe into. The ten foot radiator stayed quite well in place.

Of course, you need to carry around the 20 or 30 pounds of sand in the bucket.

I decided to put the 15.219 set-up
back on - probably in the early spring.

We will be moving some time after that, but
there will be time to have some fun with
this.

So I will be running the 13 MHz Part 15 rig,
the carrier current operation, and the
outside 3 meter stick.

I'll be bombarded by RF.

It will be like living in Carl's house.

Bruce , W 60 HZ, X-13

"Of course, you need to carry around the 20 or 30 pounds of sand in the bucket."

Another approach with Phil's "guy-less" setup is using sand bags on the base support. Still wouldn't work out here.

About a year ago there was a section of road being repaved and they had those roadblock signs up, held down by sand bags.

Next day, those signs were blown over and in the middle of 2nd street scattered across the intersection. They remained there all morning till someone decided to take it upon themselves and move them out of traffic's way.

Around here, it's a "help your self" kinda arrangement. Only trouble with that is when it really snows here and the city plows wait till there are about 50 accidents, then the plows come a calling.

Exercise weights is another option to hold things down. Again hauling them around is the real work!

RFB

"It will be like living in Carl's house"

Hmm...maybe that's why Carl has been getting even more silly on LPH than before? All that RF bombarding the brain cells are making those synaptic impulses invert! 😉

RFB

I don't advise it.

Bruce, W 60 HZ, X-13

These tiny milliWatts are nothing compared to the big fat energy I worked in at a few FM stations right under the tower.

One of those stations at 100kW had such bad standing wave the ceiling lights glowed orange WHEN THE LIGHT SWITCH WAS OFF!!

But I'm fine. No trouble up in the noggin.

Glih blart fwoop skelly shmix.....

Oh, excuse me. I have those spells.