I was looking for a way to guy my vertical whip antennas when deploying them. The MFJ 1979 that I have is nearly 17-foot long and when fully extended it can catch quite a bit of wind, and it’s fairly flaccid anyway. After I recently purchased the Wolf River Coils Silver Bullet Platinum Take-It-Along kit, which comes with a 102-inch collapsible whip, I figured I would like to make my own antenna guy ring.
I needed something small that could easily be added to my kit box and equally easy to place onto to antenna. The logical thing was to buy some plastic discs and drill a hole in the center large enough to allow the disc to slide down to around the middle of the antenna when it’s fully extended. Three smaller holes would be drilled around the circumference of the disc where guy lines would be attached. Simple enough, I thought.
I purchased these acrylic discs for a cheap first attempt. In hindsight, acrylic might not have been the best option as I shattered two of the discs (there were four in the pack) while trying to drill the guy line holes. I was using a cordless drill, so I may have been fine if I had a drill press.
To begin, I took measurements of the section of antenna where I wanted the guy ring to be placed using a digital caliper. I then used a common drill bit of appropriate size to drill the holes. I placed the disc into my bench vise and made one hole in the center and three smaller holes around the disc circumference. For my guy lines, I’m using three equal lengths of fluorescent green parachute cord which can be staked into the ground with any type of tent stake you have around.
I might improve this system if I can find a better guy ring material. Cutting up an old frisbee or something or a sheet of plastic might be better for this use. If I could find rings that fit the small antenna diameters of the WRC or MFJ 1979 masts, I’d just buy them. DXEngineering has these but they are for larger diameters than I have. Bummer.
You can buy the Wolf River Coils Silver Bullet 1000 Take-It-Along kit on their website.
73 all.
K2MAS
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