There was a time that I bought almost everything ham related from Gerald at
Texas Towers but now they have a very limited selection.
If you are looking at online metal suppliers, be sure that you purchase
drawn tubing and not extruded if you want to telescope the sections. In
recent years I have bought 6061-T6 on eBay and 6063-T8 from DX Engineering.
DX Engineering also sells Stauff clamps, aluminum mounting plates, mast
saddle clamps and everything else needed to copy the simple dipole shown in
your links. If you're attaching this to a Ø2" mast you could use a DX
Engineering BEB-2 Insulated Boom-to-Element Bracket for the center instead
of an aluminum plate and start with Ø7/8 aluminum tubing instead of Ø3/4.
John KK9A
from Jim Pruitt WA7DUY
N5YIZ had a youtube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Nw2kGq4Kfw&t=630s
and PDF of a build documnt at:
https://www.prestonmoore.com/hamradio/rotatable_dipole.pdf
It uses 12ft each of 1/2", 3/8", 5/8", and 3/4" aluminum tubing with .058"
wall thickness. He lists Texas Towers as the source for the tubing. I
tried to buy the materials this past week from Texas Towers but they are out
of stock. I tried to contact them and finally got a reply saying that Texas
Towers has no plans to restock any of that tubing.
I then called Alcobar in Spokane and they want $400 for the 48ft. I
contacted Onlinemetals.com and they want $300 for the tubing (plus
outrageous shipping). Again we are talking 6ft lengths (2 each).
Does anyone know of a REASONABLY priced supplier for the smaller aluminum
tubing?
Thank you.
Jim Pruitt
WA7DUY
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