After what was left of hurricane Ike rolled threw the Ohio Valley my antennas 
lay in a heap in the back yard and the tree limb that was the center support 
was gone. Not knowing how I was going to get my antenna back since there was 
nothing to hang my dipole from I remembered the 2”X 2” A Frame support that 
has been in the ARRL Antenna Book for many years. So I decided to build one 
to get my antenna back up. The only problem is I don’t think I have ever seen 
a 22’long 2 X 2 if I have it’s been a long time The article in the antenna book 
calls for using (3) 22 ft long 2” X 2” to build an A Frame 40 ft tall. The 
longest 2X2’s that I could find at the hardware store was 8’. Thinking a 2X2 
that tall would be pretty flimsy I decided to look a 2X4’s and found that I 
could get them in 16’ lengths so I decided that this would make a much stronger 
support. But to get the height that I wanted "some where around 35ft" It would 
take four 16ft and two10 ft 2”X4”s this would get me 38 ft. 
So to start off I took two of the 16 footers and overlapped them buy two (2) ft 
glued and bolted them together to make one leg 30 ft long. Then repeated the 
process to make the second leg the bolts that I used were ¼” X 4” and I used 3 
at each joint with wood glue this made a solid connection. Next I took one of 
the 10 ft 2”X4”s and overlapped this by 2 ft between the tops of the two legs 
once again bolted and glued them using ¼” X 6” bolts.The 2nd 10 footer was used 
for the cross pieces I made three but you can use more or less this is not critical 
but I wouldn’t use less than two. The main purpose for this support was to get my 
dipole back up but I knew that I would be playing with different antenna designs so 
I added a cross support with a second pulley and rope for future projects. This 
support has proven to be very sturdy it has survived the January 09 ice storm and 
the high winds that rolled threw a little over a week later this whole project cost 
around $50.00. Also the A frame is not light it took me, my stepson, and a brother 
in-law to safely stand it up. I did not coat it in any way but I would recommend a 
coat of paint or two if you plan to have it up for very long.