G6GVI's tilt-over mast

I actually put this tilt-over mast together using bits and pieces which I'd accumulated in my shed over the years, so it's a real "scrapheap challenge" design!

The system is based around a broken (blown seals and slightly bent sections) Clark 6m telescopic mast - now with the sections locked in place by screws. On top of that I've bolted a couple of 2m ally tubes, making a total length of around 9m. It's rather thin and flimsy, so it's a bit limited on what it can support - a 12-ele for 70cm or 27-ele for 23cm is about its limit.
But the same principle could be used with any tubular mast - a couple of 20ft ally scaffold poles would be a lot more robust!

The weight of the mast is supported by the floor (on a pivot), and it's held upright by a bracket bolted to the house wall around 6m up from the ground.
As a lower pivot, I've got an old gate-hinge bolted to the patio, to which I can clamp the bottom of the mast.

Hinge with mast upright Hinge with mast lowered

Then as an upper support I fixed an 18" stand-off T-bracket to the house wall directly above the hinge, just under the eaves. This bracket includes a home-made clamp, which holds the mast in place with a "gate" controlled by a string reaching down to the ground. The "round peg in a square hole" design allows the mast to rotate freely behind the gate.

Gate open, waiting to accept mast Mast locked in position by gate

So with the mast clamped to the hinge, in the "down" position it lies along the lawn, and then all I need to do to erect it is "walk" it up until it's vertical, and then release the string to lock it in position.

Maast lowered. The old deckchair takes the weight, to avoid the antenna digging into the lawn! The mast supports a 2-ele for 4m at 9m above ground

The whole mast can rotate within the upper clamp, and the bottom section includes a rotating collar so that I can turn the entire mast (including the antenna fixed on top) just by twisting it by hand - this is much quicker and accurate than an electric rotator!
And the best bit is that the mast runs just to one side of my (first-floor) shack window - so I only need to reach out of the window to turn it. And the feeders run straight down and in around the window-frame, and then into the back of the radio - so I really do have the shortest feeder length possible!