Ok, here’s what I cobbled together for what I believe will be a strong means of mounting my Sky:
For the mast, I ordered a 5’ length of furniture-grade 1” PVC pipe, which is attractive (high-gloss, no text printed on it) and UV-resistent: https://tinyurl.com/y755kk4m
For stability, I filled the mast with play sand (https://tinyurl.com/ybu9vxx2) and capped it with 3/4” PVC plugs (https://tinyurl.com/ya66dvpo). Note that 1” plugs did not fit into the 1” furniture-grade PVC pipe, I had to go with 3/4” plugs which fit very snugly. In fact, I had to gently pound them into position with a rubber mallet, which eliminated the need for PVC cement.
To mount the mast to my house, I wound up going with a bracket produced by Antenna Services Inc., Model #ASI-1-C (https://tinyurl.com/y7rk4x4l) It appears to be a very solid installation.
TIPS:
• Cover the PVC plugs with a clean cloth before pounding them into position. The black rubber of my mallet left dirty marks on the white PVC.
• This 5’ mast takes very little sand to fill — maybe one or two cups. I barely used any of the 50 lb. bag I purchased. If you can confiscate some out of a nearby playground, you can save yourself a few bucks.
• Those of you in harsh-weather regions may want to cement the plugs into the mast. I didn’t bother as I didn’t want the purple primer/cement to mar the snow-white PVC. Being in Northern California, I doubt the kind of weather we get will knock the plugs loose anytime soon.
• If you order the bracket from Antenna Services Inc., call Michael up on the phone, don’t rely on email. He seems to be a nice guy, but I get the feeling this is a sideline for him, and emails seemed to get lost in the ether. His number is 954-491-8681.
Now, all I need is my WF weather station. Let’s hope the delay announced today is a brief one.
-Ray