Saving money

I've been looking into how to get a decent 6m Yagi up at about 5m whilst operating /P this week.

The simple, click-to-buy option is to opt for a Spiderbeam telescopic pole, fixed to a drive-on plate.  The price for the drive-on-plate is about £80, and the pole, well, that's an astronomical £359 for the standard, 10m version.  Altogether, that's £439, just for a simple antenna mounting system!

Well, that's all a bit too much!  I did a little searching around metal suppliers.  I eventually came across Aluminium Online, which offers exactly the type of telescoping tubes we operators are looking for.  The standard tolerance might seem to require some direct contact with the company before ordering, as the tubes could - it's difficult to tell from a distance - be a little too loose inside one another.  The company does seem to offer tighter tolerances, so I'll give them a call tomorrow.

Update: the company says it supplies companies for antenna support purposes, and so these are suitable, having a 0.5mm gap all around between tubes. This should be fine for slot cuts and clamping.

A good starting point, via Aluminium Online.

 

The price for the lower section (50mm, 2m long) is around £25 or so.  I only really need about four sections at most, so that's roughly £100, allowing for the lower price of the smaller diameter tubes, and delivery.

The clamps for the poles, pretty much identical to the Spiderbeam ones, and in full A4 stainless steel, are only about £3-4 each.  I will need three of those.  

The drive-on plate is easily made with basic welding skills out of some L-section steel and a tube.

So, altogether, I estimate a homebrew support system like this will price-up like this:

4 x aluminium sections, delivered: £100

3 x A4 stainless clamps: £15, delivered

Steel length and tube for drive-on plate: £15 (I can probably reduce this to much less, with offcuts)

Metal paint (if thought necessary for the drive-on plate): £10

That gives a total homebrew price of about £140, compared to the £439 for the commercial version.  A full two-thirds saving on price!