Masthead Antenna Wire Problem

[Brent Evans]

I wonder if you or someone in the association can advise me on this;  I've gotten myself into a pickle!

The VHF antenna at the masthead of my 34 was broken when I purchased her earlier this fall.  Over the weekend I went up the mast to replace it and, I'm afraid, made the situation worse.

With the help of a climbing harness and friends belaying me from below, I climbed the mast and found a white flush-mounted stub of an antenna.  Screwing it off by hand, I had one second to observe a half inch worth of male threads sticking up through a very small hole in the black steel mast-cap that you can see in the attached photos (taken just before I started to unscrew the stub), before they dropped out of sight INSIDE the mast!  The interior fitting made a few clink and clunk sounds but I don't think the antenna wire and whatever end-fitting is on it inside could fall very far down.  There is evidence of rivets on the front side of the mast so I'm guessing that the antenna wire runs up the mast inside conduit riveted to the front of the mast.

So, now I have antenna wire inside the top of my mast.  The end fitting must have had a wider portion below the mast-cap otherwise the screw-on (broken) mast mount would never have pulled tight against the top of the cap.  This means it wouldn't have pulled up thru the hole anyway, even if I had the good fortune to grab it in the second that was available to me.

This also probably means that the antenna wire cannot be pulled out from below since the wide fitting at the top will not got through the small conduit.  I can neither go up nor down, it seems.

The only solutions I can think of are:

1)  Drill out and greatly enlarge the antenna hole and try to reach down and pull the antenna wire with its fitting up and out wher e I can work on it, or,

2) Take off the anchor light and see how big that hole is.  Maybe I can fish out the antenna wire from THAT hole, cut off the fitting and put it back up through its original hole.

So, here are my questions:

1. Hasanyone else had this problem?  Is there some other fix possible? 
2. Are you familiar with this antenna (judging from its base)?  How BIG is the fitting that is on the end of the antenna wire inside my mast?
3.  Will this interfere with my halyards?  Yikes!
4. How big is the hole under the anchor light likely to be?

Doing repairs while clinging to the top of a mast and in fear of one's life is daunting in any case.  What are my options?  Any advice is much appreciated.  Thanks!

Perplexed,

Brent Evans

[waterdog]

I have enough room in my conduit for another wire.   It has a pull string running top to bottom.    (Originally fitted this way, not my idea.)

I would forget I ever had an antenna, drill a new hole for an exit in the side of the mast and pull a new cable down and put in a new antenna.  Salvage work isn't fun at the top of the mast.   

If you go this route, get a coax cable long enough to go all the way to your radio and skip the connector at the mast base (leave a loop).  You can add in the connector the next time you pull your mast.   Connectors always reduce signal and reliability.   

[Terry Forshier]

If you do plan to haul out and step the mast in the neat future and if you are not taking long off shore trips I would suggest you mount an antenna on the stern rail and use that until you have the boat out of the water and the mast down where it is a lot easier to work on. Terry

[Brent Evans]

Thanks to both Steve and Terry for your suggestions.  I'm inclined to mount a stern rail VHF antenna for the time being.  The combinations of cold weather, wind and working at the masthead are daunting for now.  Finding the messenger at the top of the mast through a small hole in such conditions and successfully pulling a new antenna wire down past the old one seems like a 50-50 proposition at best.  Retreat may be the better part of valor in this case.  Hah!  Brent

[Ron Hill]

Brent : Go back into the old Mainsheet Tech notes.  You'll find an article (1993/4?) on where I mounted a wired Datamarine Wind instrument while the mast was in place on the boat in the water.  You might get some ideas on how to run a new coax wire for your antenna.  A thought