Push up mast mounting ideas

The Search and Rescue group I belong to has had an enclosed trailer for a number of years that was purchased to be used for equipment storage, and as a secondary command post or staging area office. So far it’s been used for the purpose of storage but has yet to be out fitted for it’s secondary use as a secondary command post or staging area office.

We are now in the process of adding radios lighting etc. to make it more usable. The group has a 30′ push mast that was used on our now retired original command post van that we’d like to use on the trailer. So we need to figure out a mount for the trailer for the mast. The requirements were determined to be as follows:

• Simple to use
• Can be setup or taken down safely by one or two people.
• Minimal modification to the trailer

After spending a few hours on the internet I posted a question in the Yahoo Groups Mobile Command Post Design  group. Add I got lot’s of great ideas.

There’s the Flag Pole Buddy

Along with a drive on mount

Another suggestion was to use Unistrut which the same system that electricians use to mount conduit in industrial applications. I’ve had good success with this myself. At home I have a 10′ mast mounted on my chimney box with a UHF beam and a 14′ long VHF fiberglass co-linear that has survived several wind storms that toppled commercial free standing towers a few blocks away.

Another idea that was given to me was using a product that I had honestly never heard of before but I think would great if used in combination with stage lighting clamps and that is the Sea Sucker vacuum mounts. they have two sizes 4 1/2″ that is rated for 120 lbs and 6 1/2″ that is rated for 210 lbs. both have a thread insert that accepts 1/4″ – 20 bolt.

A couple of these along with  a couple stage light clamps would make for a pretty good mount that would allow the mast to be mounted basically on any flat vertical surface.

Obviously if the mast is extended to it’s full height it will require at least on set of guy ropes to make it resistant to bending in the wind.

I hope this gives other people some ideas, I’ll update this if any more suggestions are sent to me.