The bane of all hams intent on mounting an antenna, especially an HF antenna, is the thought of having to drill holes in their brand-new pickup truck. Even those of us with old clunkers don’t like to poke holes in our trusty steeds. Those of us with pipe carriers or headache racks have expensive accessories that will do double duty as antenna mounts. However, those of us that have nothing or just a bed cover are faced with this issue. Commercially available stake hole antenna mounts are dreadfully expensive. If you have a bed cover, in many cases, it will block the stake hole thus requiring that you cut into the cover support structure. The goal of this project was to make a very strong mount that could handle a very heavy HF antenna while on the road yet allow for the antenna to be stowed securely inside the bed of the truck under the bed cover for garaging and anti-theft purposes. In addition, the mount does not hinder the use of the bed for cargo.

Note to ECARC members: I have the steel tube and tools needed to build your mount. We can build it in my shop in a few hours.