KL7JR's Mobile Antenna
Transporter (MAT)
"Beam Me
Up Scotty, We Have DX To Work"!
It seems I'm always in need of
something either antenna related or mast related as I travel around. This
time it's both. You might say
MAT
is somewhat related to its
cousinOPARas it is used to place an antenna in a specific
spot!
http://www.hamuniverse.com/kl7jrantennaraiser.html
Retirement finds me and my XYL
Claire, WL7MY in the beautiful Dominican Republic with a small space for
our antenna farm - our patio - 3 floors above the beautiful surroundings
with a fantactic ocean view.
The walls, floor and ceiling are full
of rebar and metal mesh fabric for structural support, and not a good
friend of radio signals. I tried using our TAK-tenna 80 meter vertical
dipole in the corner of the patio but it did not work well (by tahir). I knew I had
to get the antenna higher off the floor and further away from all the
metal in the floor, walls and ceiling.
Oh, and it had to be
stealthy too because I could not have any antennas here or transmitting
equipment (which has never stopped me before from enjoying Amateur Radio)!
We are covered well on 10-20 meters, but desperately needed the low bands
as well for our WAS effort. Check out our stealthy loop
here:
http://www.hamuniverse.com/kl7jrstealth20meterloop.html
A Rolling Base for the Tak-Tenna
80
So, I put on my design cap and
came up with a rolling base for our TAK-tenna dipole antenna that I'd
simply roll out to the center of the patio at night when I wanted to get
on 40 or 80 meters and then roll it back in to a corner to hide during the
day.
I intended to make the base out of 2x6 or 2x8 lumber but the
local lumber yard only sold the treated variety in 18 foot lengths which
was way too expensive for this project! Oh, I needed 4 caster wheels but
all they had was 3....it's called "making do" or the pleasures of remote
island living! Now what?
Plan B soon emerged. I'd scrounge in
their scrap wood pile (okay, dumpster dive, hi hi!) and use the 3 wheels
in a delta shape (seen below).
Rolling base with wheels
mounted
Pipe Flange and short
pipe mounted to rolling base
I found enough 1 inch wide rough
oak scrap boards to work so I had the lumber yard cut me 6 pieces by 16
inches long. It would have to do. I then nailed the pieces together on my
patio (what pounding noises? not me!) and installed the 3 wheels. I then
screwed a 1 inch pipe flange to the top and added the 1" x 12" pipe nipple
that the wooden antenna mast (a new life for a discarded broom stick!)
slips inside. All shown above and below in photos.
Finished "MAT"
shown below supporting antenna.
Tak-Tenna "80" shown in operating position near "DX Window"
before tuning
The
antenna moves quite easily on our patio floor and takes 5 seconds to
deploy. Maybe one day you'll need something like this to stay on the air
or use for your antenna experiments. With the pipe materials and wheels I
had about $20 invested.
When not
in use, the "MAT" is tucked away out of site in a corner of the patio
hidden from prying eyes on the ground 3 floors below ready to
roll out to ham radio fun!
73 de Yukon John, HI3/KL7JR
Editor's note....
With
the Tak-tenna mounted on the MAT, it also makes a dandy home made
portable "bird perch" when visitors ask "What is
that?"
