The portable beam

Ed, K8MEJ So far my experiments with a portable, rotatable hex beam are working well. Even though the "expedition" version of the hexbeam I bought is meant for temporary use, fitted with storm cords it has survived the recent high winds we've experienced these last few weeks. I just couldn't keep the darned thing from spinning in the wind until now. Taking at least three different peoples' advice, I have done the following: • Used hose clamps to "sister" an extra leg section to each of two legs to keep the mast vertical on uneven ground. I used a small piece of 3/4" EMT to keep the legs from twisting or turning around each other • Drilled and tapped three holes in the aluminum tripod adapter and used three stainless steel 1/4" x 20 x 2" eyebolts with nuts to keep the mast from rotating and to provide a place to anchor the tripod to the ground (more later) • Used three turns of electrical tape at each section mating point to keep each section from rotating. The combination of the eyebolts and tape seems to work well! • Used a 12" ground screw-in ground anchor, paracord, and a Nite-Ize CamJam carabiner to keep the tripod from lifting up when shoving mast sections up. This is especially handy when raising the mast by myself. The el-cheapo RCA rotator works well enough for extended temporary use in my back yard. I can see the mast from my shack window so while the rotator doesn't have positional feedback (except at 0 and 360 degree limits), I can just look outside and see if it's in the right ball park. For strictly portable use during an event, I can use the "strong arm" method of rotating the hexbeam using a rope and foregoing the rotator, cabling, controller, etc. This is especially useful if only operating on battery/solar power in the field. --