I kludged together a mount for last week’s game to use for monitoring for emergency traffic and to help with info requests. Decided I could upgrade things easy enough into what I’ve christened as the FireFly BigStick.
I painted up a 1.25" PVC tube to match the truck, which is UV-resistant ty-wrapped to the bumper guard (known as an ARB, Australian for “Australian Roo Bar”). I can imagine such a mount also being made to attach to a trailer hitch, go into the side stake pockets on a pickup bed, or other location if you don’t happen to have an ARB available.
Here’s the parts lined up at the bumper. Not shown is a short length (about 1’ ) of 1" PVC pipe that went into the mount first. It centers the broomstick and allows the whole mast assembly to sit a little higher. The aluminum thing on the right is an extensible pole used as a handle for paint rollers. It has a 1" diameter, too, with an old 4" paint roller handle bent to hang the goTenna Mesh, an original FireFly, or other case holding it (like is the case here.)
A 1" PVC tube slips into that semi-permanent mount tube, where the short part of the spacer resides in the bottom of the mount tube, which is about 2’ long. A 1" diameter broom stick goes inside that, with the rest of the 1" PVC pipe going over it. Everything is extended and laid out here next to the Meshmobile. The broom stick shows by how much it’s projecting where that bottom spacer that is already in the mount tube goes.
And here it is, about 15’ in the air, reachable by Bluetooth, but at a much better height for getting your Shouts and other messages out.
At that height, it’s too high for driving around, but that’s fully extended. It can be lowered and adjusted to heights that will clear most everything, i.e. around 11’. Not sure how much driving around like that I’ll do but it provides another option for doing radioscape survey work and the mount should be strong enough , although not sure I’d run with it at highway speeds.
I developed this to give good coverage for monitoring for emergency and info/inquiry messages while working parking at football games. It will also come in handy when camping or attending large outdoor events. The whole contraption breaks down so it stores easily in the back of the truck so it’s always available as needed.