VE3WMB Fiberglass Mast Base Support
There are a number of sources for telescopic fiberglass poles that can be had for reasonable prices and make great portable masts for Ham radio applications. Mine is a medium duty 24ft pole designed to support a wind banner. Given the light weight and transportability of these poles I wanted to come up with a self-supporting mounting solution that was also lightweight. After some consideration and a few trips to Home Depot here is what I came up with.
Measure the outside diameter of the base of your pole and visit your local home depot or other hardware store. What you need to buy is a 3ft length of ABS pipe that has a large enough inside diameter for the pole to fit into (but not too large), an ABS cap to fit the pipe, 2 large stainless steel hose clamps (large enough to go around the pipe with some extra room), and a 3ft section of aluminum angle stock that is large enough that the ABS pipe can fit against it.
I ended up with :
I cut the ABS pipe to 16" and glued the cap on one end. I cut the angle stock to approx 24" with a hacksaw and then made a v-cut to make one end of the angle stock pointy (ie it becomes a metal stake).
Here is where a picture is worth a thousand words ....
Nest the abs pipe into the V of the angle stock so that the open end of the pipe is up and the pointy end of the angle stock is down and secure with the two hose clamps.You will want to make sure that about an inch or so of the stock protrudes above the ABS pipe as this is what you pound on with a rubber mallet to get in into the ground. Extend your fishing pole and drop it down into the open ABS pipe and you are in business. The resulting base is quite light and durable and will support a reasonable sized fiberglass pole without guying under most conditions.
This implementation will give you about 7 or so inches of stake in the ground which will work ok on grass. If you plan to use it on the beach or in more loosely packed soil I suggest increasing the length of the piece of angle stock so that you have maybe a foot that you can pound into the ground.
I also recommend that you use a rubber mallet as a hammer will tend to dent the aluminum. If weight isn't an issue you could use a steel angle stock and perhaps a small sledge as this would work much better if you have to contend with slightly rocky soil. One other hint. If you are a perfectionist and want to minimize lean resulting from not driving the stake in straight you can buy a plastic Post and Pipe level that you can attach on to the stake with an elastic when you are driving the stake into the ground.
Using a bigger diameter ABS pipe and slightly larger angle stock you could extend this concept to make a support of a DK9SQ mast or the MFJ equivalent. Both of these masts have a larger base diameter than that of the fiberglass fishing poles such as the SouthBend SD-20 and the Shakespeare Wonderpole.