{"id":78,"date":"2008-08-31T18:11:26","date_gmt":"2008-08-31T18:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.danplanet.com\/wordpress\/?p=78"},"modified":"2008-08-31T18:11:26","modified_gmt":"2008-08-31T18:11:26","slug":"a-pvc-sheath-for-a-portable-gp-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danplanet.com\/blog\/2008\/08\/31\/a-pvc-sheath-for-a-portable-gp-3\/","title":{"rendered":"A PVC sheath for a portable GP-3"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the recent Hillsboro Air Show<\/a> , I operated a portable station from First Aid Tent 2 out on the airfield.  Although it was completely overkill, we used a Comet GP-3<\/a> mounted about ten feet up.  We used a couple of sections of standard TV mast connected to a tripod (which was then zip-tied to a canopy strut).  This worked extremely well and is part of Ed Clark, KC7ZBI’s standard portable setup.<\/p>\n

More recent than the air show, I worked a shift on the Hood-To-Coast<\/a> relay race.  The race is mostly through back roads in the very northern bits of Oregon countryside.  Cell service is spotty in most places, and completely absent in many.  I was in a place where there was no cell coverage, and even the small 2-meter magmount on the car wasn’t getting into the repeater very well.  This gave me the excuse I needed to assemble a ready-to-go portable setup like the one we used at the Air Show.<\/p>\n

The GP-3 is an ideal antenna for this, but at $100, it’s definitely something you don’t want to just throw around.  So, I decided to formulate a mechanism for protecting it during transit.  Ed uses a fishing pole holder with tennis balls around the antenna shaft, which works pretty well.  However, I had the idea of using standard PVC pipe parts to make something a little more custom.  The result is pictured here:<\/p>\n

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The parts involved are:<\/p>\n

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