Mobile HF Antenna by eckie63

Last crawled date: 3 years, 1 month ago

This is an attempt at a 3D printable version of the $20 mobile HAM radio HF antenna design by Frank W. King, KM4IE. It was published in the April 2000 issue of QST. The original article can be found here: http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Technology/tis/info/pdf/0004033.pdf This material is used by the kind permission of the ARRL.
Please note that at this time, this thing has not been printed yet and parts may not fit together well. I am mainly looking to share the idea and am looking for feedback and thoughts at this point.
My thought is to use ABS for all the parts. I'm thinking PLA isn't a good choice since it will need some flexing ability. Being for mobile use, the wind load will also need to be taken into account. I'm not thinking the forces on the top cap from the ferrule and antenna whip at the top will be a big problem. The forces at the bottom by the mounting bolt may be a problem though so I may need to create a bottom end cap with more material.
Any ideas, comments or feedback on this are welcome.
Update: I discovered I had messed up the dimensions and have adjusted the parts. The new STL files have been uploaded. I still have just printed a couple of them so the entire thing still has not been verified.