Removing Conducting Mast of End Fed Antenna

I had mounted the End Fed Half Wave (EFHW) antenna which I had purchased recently with three masts. One CPVC pipe of 3 m length on the compound fence as support for the 49:1 balun at the feedpoint. Second one was a telescopic fibre glass post of 16 feet length on first floor balcony. Third one was a 22 feet galvanized iron (GI) pipe on the first floor balcony. The other end of EFHW was tied using a nylon rope to the compound wall fence without any mast there as bare electrical power lines were passing nearby on the road.

Actually the telescopic fibre glass pole was a three stage pole and the last stage was stuck inside. Called up the supplier and learned the method to release it so that it could be raised to 24 feet. This video clip shows the three separated parts of the telescopic pole. The screw in mechanisms to hold the parts together are also visible. Red marks indicate the portion beyond which should go inside the wider segment.

A hole was drilled at the uppermost part to make a pulley like mechanism using nylon wire. This would help in elevating and lowering the antenna without dismantling the fibre glass pole or lowering the sections by telescoping the segments.

Then I removed the GI pipe and shifted the fibre glass pole to that location after assembling it back in a telescopic fashion. After pulling the antenna element up, the EFHW was mounted in an asymmetric inverted V configuration. As this video clip was captured from the foot of the mast, it appears as if one limb of the antenna is horizontal, while actually it is sloping downwards, though a little less steeply than the other limb. Appearance is due to the oblique view. For the same reason, the top of the mast appears to be above the level of coconut trees in a compound beyond the road in front! Actually the trees are much taller than the height of the mast.

Here is another view taken from the ground on the opposite side. The thick wire seen across is a cable TV service cable, which is nearer to the location of the camera and hence magnified a bit. Though it appears as thick as the mast, it is much thinner!

After mounting, VSWR was tested on various bands. There was an increase in VSWR at 7.1 MHz from 1.1 to 1.6 and from 1.1 to 1.7 at 14.01 MHz. In other parts of 40 and 20 m band, there was no significant change in VSWR, which was heartening. There was a rise in VSWR on 15 m, with lower end having 3.0 and upper end 2.5. Similarly there was rise in VSWR on 10 m as well, which ranged from 2.4 to 1.7. Yet all values were tunable with the built-in antenna tuner.

Most important advantage of the revision which I could notice was that I started hearing SSB stations on 15 m and I was able to work a couple of them from Europe, for the first time. There were also CW stations audible on 15 m, but my CW setup is not yet ready and the stations were too fast for me to decipher. Yet I am not sure whether it was due to a contest going on during the weekend or better band conditions. I will be able to find that out only in the coming days.