Photo montage of the September 1996 144 Mhz Trophy contest at Chapel Hill.  I hope I am right in saying that Dr Michael Addlesee M0BLP, put this together for a front cover of Cambeam.  Please correct this information with me if this is not the case.

The pictures show the days before "Pump-up" masts when we used to lift the mast, which was made up of ten - 4 foot sections with a 20 foot scaffold pole stuck into the top, with a gin pole.  As some of you can testify the getting up was relatively easy, it was the coming down that was the tricky bit.

At about 20 degrees from the horizontal the mast bends and the aerials hit the deck with the poor chaps hanging on the various halyards being unable to control the final decent.  Some brave or foolhardy chap has to rush in and grab the mast before the club need to buy new aerials.

You can clearly see that the top aerial had a rotator, as well as the mast being able to armstrong rotate, so that the 17 ele Tonna beams could be stacked or whatever as deemed necessary.  Was it worth all that extra hardware? - I have no idea.

Back to year Selection

Back to Home