28 May 2007

Boom to mast

I could finally work out a way to plug the 5 element on a fishing rod.

My mast will be a telescopic fiberglass fishing rod. I need a way to attach the boom that does not compress the rod structure: no screws and no holes!

So I sled the "4m telescopocket" fishing rod into a segment of 25mm PVC pipe: it stops somewhere at about 2.3m from rod bottom. Enough for a VHF yagi! So I found this way of attaching the PVC pipe to the boom:


I might also add a small 3mm screw in the intermediate holes to reinforce the whole assembly.

Please do not tighten nuts too much otherwise the PVC pipe bends inwards!