Zach,
Any good sturdy tripod will do. The trick however is to get the arrow to stay put when you tilt to the side to allow for polarity change. Since there is only one mounting hole in the Arrow that is threaded to mate with the screw camera mount screw thread that attaches cameras to the usually removable camera plate. Since the antenna is long with a far from the mount center of gravity, if you tilt the mount head over on it's side, the antenna will invariably slide downward which is not desirable. I can send a picture of what I had done to my tripod camera plate to make this not happen. Basically you take a small metal angled piece, like maybe equipment rack ears, preferably with some screw holes already in it, and position it on the camera mount plate such that the plate will rest snug to the boom of the arrow when screwed into the mount. Mark the holes and then drill through the mount. Attach nuts and bolts through and under the plate to secure this piece of metal. When done, and if positioned right, the boom will not move a bit when the camera plate is tilted to the side.
Tom Schuessler N5HYP
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Message: 8 Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2016 20:34:12 +0000 (UTC) From: zach hillerson [email protected] To: "[email protected]" [email protected] Subject: [amsat-bb] tripod recommendations Message-ID: [email protected] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
I'm wondering if anyone can give me the name/model of the tripod they are successfully using with their Arrow antenna? ?I would like to get back into the satellite world but need a tripod due to shoulder issues. ?I've ordered 2 from Amazon and neither has been able to hold the weight of the Arrow. ? After several days of searching through the house for my old tripod my wife finally admitted selling it at a yardsale :-( Thanks for any recommendations, Zach N4ERZ?
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On Tue, 12 Jan 2016 10:29:16 -0600, "Tom Schuessler" [email protected] wrote:
Zach,
Any good sturdy tripod will do. The trick however is to get the arrow to stay put when you tilt to the side to allow for polarity change.
I came up with an alternative solution that may work for some people: a PVC pipe mount that allows you to "roll" the Arrow to allow for polarity change (not a full 90 degrees, but it will get you in the neighborhood).
The photo below was when I had it mounted on my camera tripod with a ball mount; I've since moved to a more conventional pitch/yaw type.
http://i.imgur.com/D0XwWlA.jpg
The homebrew mount is made out of 25mm PVC pipe -- two 90° corners, two T joints, and enough straight pipe to fit. The T joints I found were, luckily, exactly the correct length to fit over the boom and stay clear of all the antenna elements. The pipe is also of a sufficient diameter to allow the entire yagi to move laterally within it.
I drilled a hole in the bottom of the straight pipe of the same size as the standard tripod shoe screw. I then "forced" a bolt of the same size into the hole to "thread" it -- after this the tripod shoe fit snug onto the pipe. (This is a temporary solution; later I'm thinking of a more permanent mount made out of a pipe clamp.)
Et voila, a jury-rigged 3-axis mount. Using a standard pitch/yaw tripod, I can also twist the yagi to change polarity without having to worry that the tripod will bear extra weight to one side. Keeping the tripod shoe about 5° tilted left in my case will allow the elements to be perpendicular to the ground.
Hope this helps someone!
73
participants (2)
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J. Boyd (JR2TTS)
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Tom Schuessler