A dipole antenna is a center insulator, two wires going out in opposite directs and either a coax or ladder line feed line. Most people go with ladder line as it is cheaper, lighter and VERY low loss, but you have to keep it away metal at all costs. Coax for a feed line is heavy but you do not have the same routing restrictions as you do with ladder line. Usually a dipole is deployed by tossing lines over two trees and pulling up the dipole ends on either side which raises the center. Having a droopy dipole center is very common, but you want the center to be in alignment with the two long wires in order to achieve the correct signal pattern. If you can pull with massive force on each side of the dipole you can get the center as in-line as possible, but the odds of not breaking your center insulator or even the tree branch you used is very low and the center may still not be in-line because of the weight of our feed line. Jerry Carter W4SU has done an excellent installation to support the center of his 40 Meter Dipole.
What mast was used?
The MK-8-HD, 50 foot push up mast was utilized. It has a maximum height of 50 feet when fully extended, but this would require guying. Jerry said he went overkill on guying, but since his mast is staying vertical I would say the setup is done near perfectly. In order to use the full 50 feet a full guying complement will need to be used.
Guying
Guying is key when using the MK-8-HD 50 foot push up mast. Jerry used solid 6×6 posts buried and cemented in the ground for his elevated guy points. We have a separate post on elevated guy points if you want to know more on the topic. we used some electrically non-conductive fiberglass Solid Rod as the elevated guy posts to get a guy point for our MK-8-HD mast over our building. You read that post here: https://mgs4u.com/elevated-guy-point-on-a-round-post-all-about-guying/.
If you do not have the room, the time, or you just dont need to install elevated guy points then you can utilize our lifetime guy stakes as your guy points. We have complete guy kits that have everything you might need to guy your mast. See below a list of products you could use to achieve the same results without the need for elevated guy points and the use of concrete.
1x MK-8-HD, 50 foot Heavy Duty Fiberglass Push-Up Mast
1x GK-8HD-4-GR, Guying Kit for the 50 foot HD Mast
1x M-G212HD-K, Ground Base Mount Kit
Guy Kits
The guy kit includes non-stretch black dacron rope, mega guy stakes, guy line tensioners, and guy rings for the mast. See the guying diagram below:
Message from Jerry Carter W4SU
“You can even cite me as a classic case of overkill. I hear that often and I plead guilty. But planning and doing all of that stuff is fun for me when it turns out okay, and I make my share of screw-ups. During the months I was recovering from shoulder replacement, I had a lot of time to plan the details.
I’m a real believer in your product. This mast you brought to me in Huntsville at the 2015 hamfest. The whole assembly was a bit long to work with. I won’t include the photos of Wade on a ladder strapped to a second ladder. The other ladder was just to keep the second spaced away from the mast. OSHA would have frowned on it. For the push-up, when we got to that final section a couple of us had to grip the bottom section very tightly to keep from picking up the whole mast as my son Wade (N4NSU) pushed it up. The mast does look good now (at least to a ham). If I had neighbors they probably would not think as much of it!”
With this setup, you can get up and on the air in no time, but it might not be the right setup for everybody. See all of our available masts ranging from 12 feet up to 50 feet, all mounting options, and all guying equipment here: https://mgs4u.com/fiberglass-push-up-masts/.