wrote in message
...
A friend of mine planted a bamboo shoot in his side yard, now it is
taking over his and his neighbors yards. Told me to cut down all I
want. Had planned to use it for bean poles and plant supports, then
it occurred to me: quads, moxons, spiderwebs -- this stuff is really
strong and stiff. Some canes are 12-16 feet long.

Anybody have experience with bamboo, especially used as semi-permanent
end supports for dipoles and inverted vs?

TNX
Paul KB1GEJ
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Yep. Years ago CQ magazine had an article about a $4 2 element 15 meter
beam made from bamboo. Of course, bamboo fishing poles were about $0.25
each back then. The boom was made from 2 1x2 wood screwed together, and
there were 6 foot long 1x2 boards at each end of the boom for element
supports.

Aluminum foil was laid out on the ground and the pole was placed on top and
wrapped with the foil. Electrical tape wraps between bamboo joints kept it
in place. Electrical connections were via hose clamps on the butt ends of
the bamboo poles.

The elements were mounted on the boom/cross supports via screw-in supports
intended for routing 300 ohm tv cable. Open the eye of the support, and pop
out the cable centering insulator, screw it into the boom end supports, put
the element in place and crimp down the eye on the element.

Works great, and doesn't look too bad. However, it may not pass the
neighborhood popularity test.