What Yagi and Tilt Over Mast Designs

Continuation on a mini beam progresses and I’m thinking of purchasing a THF2-e Yagi, a two element tribander for 20, 21 and 10 meters. Reasonably priced at £360, the reviews have been pretty good and I think it would suit my needs. However it’s still early days yet so we’ll wait and see.

Currently the 17m Moxon is sitting in the horizontal position due to high winds. For the past few weeks I have been manually raising and lowering the antenna which can be quite tough, as it’s reasonably heavy with a 25’ scaffold pole, rotator and probably 8 kilos of antenna. So it does add up a bit and can be a bit of a struggle for one person!

I’m trying to design a winch system for a tilt over mast which would incorporate two 8’ scaffold poles positioned close together 2' deep in the ground, similar to what I have now with the main 25' mast between them which rotates with a bolt between all poles.

A winch will be attached to both or one of the poles, with a pulley at the top and winching would then pull the mast in an upward direction therefore saving my back!! All basic stuff but with a bit more planning and thinking should work OK.

Anyway I've already bought a 2500 lbs strain winch off eBay on the cheap and am now looking out for other bits and pieces that I may need. Everything will have to be strong and sturdy so welding as well as bolting will probably be incorporated. This might prove to be an interesting project but I'm sure there will be some good ideas on the web when I give it a good search.