Since the early 1990s, I've used a 40' homebrew tiltup/rotatable mast,
made with 1-1/4" Schedule 40 pipe. It supports a 3-el tri-band yagi.
It is guyed at 20' and 35'. The top guys serve double duty as inverted
vees for 80 and 40m. A single person can assemble and tilt the mast
up though, more bodies makes it go faster & easier.
A 20' falling derrick mast and winch are used to do the tilting. Three or
four foot long pieces of scrap steel rod are used as anchors. If after the
operating is done and one or more anchors don't want to be removed,
they get slammed all the way into the ground and are inexpensively
replaced.
After erecting the mast + antennas, we used a tent trailer parked next
to the mast, with one of the zippered screen windows parallel to the mast.
With the mast guyed straight, rotating was easy. A piece of tape marked
"N-E-S-W" on the mast conveniently indicates direction.
A webpage with PDF drawing is here: http://tinyurl.com/wa7prc-fielddaymast
A video clip of it tilting down is
here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsgizeagAQw
Oodles of FD photos showing it in use are available.
vy 73 es gl,
Bryan WA7PRC
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