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Reviews For: DK9SQ Portable Tower

Category: Towers, masts, accessories, climbing & safety gear

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Review Summary For : DK9SQ Portable Tower
Reviews: 17MSRP: 99
Description:
A 10m telescopic mast for portable/DXpedition use.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.qsl.net/dk9sq/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00174.5
W6AKB Rating: 2021-07-06
Well made, stiff telescoping pole Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought one of these at Dayton years ago, along with four base extensions. It was about the highest pole at Quartzfest when I deployed it there (about 55 feet), and the wind barely had any effect on it but the streamer on top was visible for a mile. I did have it collapse during the night when the wind stopped, and it made a loud noise collapsing into the 5 gallon plastic bucket I had the base in. There was no damage since I stuff a rag inside the base when deploying, so there is a nice cushion for the sections to collapse into. Best to use some tape to prevent collapse if you are leaving it up for more than a day, and always consider something to soften the descent and protect the section ends just in case. Still in good shape after all these years.
K6JEK Rating: 2011-07-09
Light, stiff Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Used two of these for a stealthy phased dipole set-up and had them stay up for years, until I took the down, actually.

They are much lighter and much stiffer than the Spiderbeam poles but probably not as strong.

I taped the joints to prevent collapse. I removed the top section which is too light to be useful. I used several of the optional extensions to increase height.

Only complaints. I kept losing the screw-on bottom caps which pop off a little too easily. As I mentioned the top section is so light as to be useless for anything I can imagine.
N5VEG Rating: 2010-06-11
DK9SQ Modified Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Last evening, I found an old beat up DK9SQ Walter Spieth Telescop Tower in the junk pile at our local ham club. I took it home, cleaned and repaired it and instead of hanging a wire from it, I put a 32 ft. wire "inside" the fiberglass mast! I mounted it on a pipe stuck in the ground on the side of my house. I also ran one counterpoise wire about 32 feet and buried it in the soil. Well, it works just fine!! I got nothing but 5/9 and 5/9+ reports from TX,GA,and FLA today on 40 and 80 meters running 75 watts. I read in previous reviews on this mast that it was reinforced with "graphite" and would absorb RF. Well, either mine was not in that production run or the graphite story is just science fiction! This thing tunes up just fine with a SWR of 1.2-1 on 40 and with the 80 meter coil that I made for it will likewise tune as well on 80 meters. I am extremely pleased with this modified mast even if it looks old and ragged!

Walter, wherever you are, U da man!
M5TAW Rating: 2009-03-24
There are better alternatives Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought mine as part of a quad loop kit a few years ago. At that time it was the only 10m mast available that I could find.
I like the fact that it is matt black, it makes a good stealth installation. However I would describe the construction as being too lightweight - it is possisble to deform the larger tubes just by lightly pressing them in. Mine collapsed in moderate winds..
I have since replaced with a spiderbeam 12m mast - which is in a completely different league. It's considerably more robust and the top section is much thicker- unlike a fishing rod.
The DK9SQ was good in its day - but there are now far better alternatives available.
NY4D Rating: 2008-12-14
Years of Use From The DK9SQ Mast Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've had this it seems like forever (2001 I think) and it has done everything I asked of it and more. And I have to admit I've asked too much of it a time or two.

I've used it as a support for many wire antennas, and it is generally always in use for antenna experiments, so despite the fact that it is sold as a portable mast, mine has endured years of permanent use in Florida and south Georgia.

Right now it is supporting a 67 foor ocf up temporarily for evaluation purposes.

The mast is NOT conductive, I've run twin lead, ladder line, and zip cord feeds tied right to the mast with no problems and no swr difference compared to bringing them out a couple feet from the mast.

A semi-permanent support can be rigged up with a 5 gallon bucket, pvc pipe, and some sack-crete.

Right now I'm using a base support rigged from a cast iron patio umbrella stand weighed down by a couple of half concrete blocks. But I've deployed this lashed to fence posts, leaned up against trees, vehicles, whatever is handy.

Don't expect to hang some out of the box heavy balun containing center insulator off the top of this mast. Right now I'm using a Ten-Tec Acrobat but I generally use a pvc tee with the top drilled out just enough to allow the tee to slip down over the mast a bit below the top, and use unzipped zip cord for my antenna elements. Most of the time I use twin lead or ladder line for feeds but I've gotten away with RG6 and RG8x a time or two.

With this pole, an antenna book or two, a roll of wire, and some imagination you can have a lot of fun with antennas. I'd have to say this has been one of my most useful ham radio purchases ever.
HB9KL Rating: 2008-03-06
Not conductive! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I fully agree with the comments of TF3DX. I have measured the conductivity of the DK9SQ Portable Tower with a Resistance Meter with a range of over 1000 Megohms. The measuring distance was 1cm. Both measurements with black paint untouched and the surface a little roughened up showed infinite resistance.
K6SDW Rating: 2007-10-23
Great design! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Use the mast fully extended to hold up G5RV while RV camping and it has never let me down (pun intended!)

Great design!!

Cheers All...
ON4CCU Rating: 2007-10-23
Great for verticals Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I've used this tower to build a vertical antenna. Just taped some 10-odd meters of wire to it and mounted it elevated on a metal pipe 3 meters above the ground. I'm feeding it with a CG3000 tuner, with three random length radials attached to the ground screw of the tuner. This set-up is performing really well, it tunes on all bands from 160 to 10, and it consistently outperforms my R7.
Just like some other reviewers, I was a bit concerned about potential conductivity, but I haven't noticed any. I initially checked it by putting it very close to another (resonant) vertical, but the SWR didn't change at all. Also with the current construction where the wire is taped to the tubing itself I haven't had any indications that it's influencing radiation.
It has survived some high winds, in which it tends to bend quite a bit, but it doesn't seem to suffer. You do have to secure the joints though (duct tape), if not the telescoping elements will slide into each other.
TF3DX Rating: 2007-09-05
Not RF conductive! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought a DK9SQ 10 m telescopic pole in September 2005. A bit suspicious of the alleged RF conductivity I ran a test as follows. I had an aluminum tube homemade half-wave vertical for 20 m standing guyed on an insulator. It was fed at the base via L-matching network against elevated radials cut for 40 m ground-plane operation as well. The test was run on the 20 m band, with both ends at high potential and high current in the middle. Also, it would be closest to the natural resonant frequency of the DK9SQ pole in case it was conductive, resulting in maximum interaction.

I monitored the SWR through the L-tuner as I moved the DK9SQ pole closer and closer to the vertical. No change was noticed in the SWR until the pole was only several cm away from the vertical. Taping the two together, touching for about 2/3 of the length, produced a measurable reduction in resonant frequency, but only as would be expected from the dielectric property of the fiberglass. The SWR at resonance was still 1:1, indicating no perceptible change in the resistive part and thus no introduction of noticeable loss.

The question may arise if the orignal vertical and its matching were normally efficient during the test. A malfunctioning or unduly lossy set-up could mask the potential influence of the pole. In lieu of more scientific testing I can only offer the following observations: The lower end of the vertical (upper out of reach!) was sensitive to hand capacity and touching it sent the SWR sky high. This is indicative of high Q and good efficiency. I used this vertical for several years, before and after, with good results as such antennas go. It yielded 20 m skeds to ZL (near antipode) on 100 W CW twice a week with practically 100% reliability for extended periods, outperforming other simple antennas of several local hams that occasionally participated in the skeds, as well as various wire antennas at my QTH.

Conclusion: Apart from the slight reduction in resonant frequency, easily compensated for, I could not detect any change in the properties of a normally good vertical with the DK9SQ pole touching it. I am quite confident that my pole has no noticeable conductivity.


N7DKK Rating: 2003-11-10
Quite nice but...... Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I bought two of these I liked them so much and I would have given it a 5 except for what they didn't tell you.....

They are RF CONDUCTIVE!.

Apparently, the black color comes from either carbon fiber or a carbon product.

I put up a 140 loop using two of these. The vertical parts were taped to the fiberglass masts. Talk about RF in the shack and some crazy SWR readings! Whooo!

Untaped the vertical loop from the masts and suspended it away from the tower 2 feet and the problem went away! Found out later that someone else had tried to use these as a vertical support and had the same problem.

How the previous poster successfully acheived taping the wire to the mast eludes me except perhaps they just started using this form of carbon additive for strength and UV protection.

GREAT tower, though, just be aware that it may be conductive.