I need to share with all of you my recent experience with masts that might
contribute to this discussion. As you might recall, several weeks ago I
faced a very similar decision; that is, to purchase one of the Rohn push-up
masts or to go with a combination of water pipe, which I could purchase
locally. I decided to go with the water pipe approach, but in hindsight, I
wish I would have gone the other way and purchased the Rohn push-up mast.
Here's why:

I went with two sections of water pipe; one 21 foot section of 1 1/2" and
one 16 foot section of 1 1/4" pipe, held together with a reducer/pipe
coupler. It was extremely difficult to get up, requiring an entire crew of
my ham club buddies to help me get it up in place into the bracket on the
house. It would have been fine if everything went as planned and the
antennas all worked like they were supposed to, but that isn't what
happened. I had the feedpoint of my loop antenna suspended up almost 36 feet
from the bottom of the mast using a pulley system. Rope is tied to the
center feedpoint of my loop and then, the rope goes through a pulley and
down to the bottom of the mast. The idea was that if needed, I could lower
the feedpoint of the loop by simply loosening the rope going through the
pulley. Again, it was a great idea, except that one of my ham buddies
loosened the rope so much that the wind caught the loose rope and blew it
off the pulley. Now, I have no way of getting the rope back up and around
the pulley without somehow getting up to it and placing the rope back around
the pulley. If I would have gone with the push-up mast approach, there would
be no problem. I could simply lower the mast, fix the problem, and raise the
mast back up in place, and bingo! I could even do it all myself without
having to get the guys back over here to lower the pipe, which is not easily
done, and then, putting it back up again, which is even more difficult, or
hire someone with a bucket truck, which is expensive. The one big thing I
liked about the water pipe idea was the water pipe is much, much thicker
walled and considerably less susceptible to bending. I have used push-up
masts in the past, and if you aren't really careful with them, they will
bend, and even a very slight bend will keep them from telescoping back
together again.

I apologize for this long post, but I just thought I would give all of you
the benefit of my experience, and again, if I had it to do all over again, I
would have gone with the Rohn push-up mast. However, for what is worth, the
dual band 2 M and 70 CM vertical I have on top of the mast works like a
champ, and even the feedpoint of my loop isn't up where I meant it to be,
it, too, is working quite well. I've worked about 80 dx contacts with 35
different countries so far and worked some of the countries several times.  

Ron, K8HSY


-----Original Message-----
From: For blind ham radio operators [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Michael Ryan
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2014 1:59 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Rohn 9H50

Hey all:=20

DX Engineering sells the Rohn 9H50 Telescoping mast for 149.99.=20 It
telescopes to 34.15 feet and is a 5 section mast. The top section is =
1.25 so I'm guessing that might be a little small to put a rotator on = but
I'm sure you could extend it up to 3 or 4 sections, put a rotator on = that,
then put a short mast holding the Hex on the rotator.=20 I think me and my
XYL could manage this quite easily and its something = I'm going to consider
over the winter and hopefully save up for.=20

73:=20
Mike VO1AX=20