My Cushcraft MA6V offset vertical dipole, mounted on top of two 10-foot tv mast sections and strapped to the back fence, has been sagging a bit lately. It’s no small wonder, given that the wind plays havoc with the masts, bending both of them as it rips through the neighborhood coming either out of the windswept plains of West Texas or from somewhere around the Dakotas. Plus, the 20 meter section worked find for CW but now that I’m running RTTY higher in the band, I needed to make a tweak to the tuning.
So, this afternoon I made it to Radio Shack and purchased guy wire, turnbuckles, anchors, and mast clamp, all for right at $20. Then I installed three guy wires that are not quite at 120 degrees from one another, but seem to do a reasonable job of getting the masts back to near vertical. We’ll see how that does when the wind start blowing again.
I was also able to tweak a bit on the 20 meter section and got it to exactly the right point on the band. Plus, the remaining bands all kept their places and look great.
So a good afternoon setting in place guy wires and adjusting the antenna resonance.
