Tilt-Up Base Instructions — Install, Lower, Raise
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Tilt-Up Base: Install, Lower, Raise
One page, everything you need. Fits the standard 2" Tilt-Up Base and the XL for 2.25" legacy antennas — same steps on both. Questions at any step: 435-200-4902.
Reading this before you own one?
You are looking at the whole job: four bolts, one person, no ladder. Bart, N1BRL, does it twice a day and filmed it: two minutes, down and back up →
Every tilt and mount, and which fits what: Tilt-Up Bases & Mounts → · Still choosing the antenna: find your height in four taps →
The one rule: loosen all four bolts, remove the SECOND bolt down.
The top bolt is the fulcrum and always stays in. If the pole will not go over, you have taken out the top bolt instead of the second, or left the lower bolts tight.
1. Before You Install
Pick your lay-down direction. The base tilts one way only and stops dead at vertical. Point it so the antenna lies flat clear of the house, fence, driveway, and neighbors.
Plan for the extra height. The base lifts the whole antenna better than a foot — check flag clearance and eaves.
Check your feedline slack. The feedpoint rises with the antenna. If your line was cut close, move the tuner nearer the pole or add a length of line.
Flagpole owners: check halyard reach. The cleat rises too. The cleat section can be flipped and moved down so the cleat sits just below the feedpoint — make sure its screws clear the feedline inside the tube.
2. Install — Ground Upward
The tilt base goes between your aluminum base section and your lower insulator. Same hole, same sleeve — no new digging.
a. PVC ground sleeve — set in concrete, as it is today.
b. Aluminum base section — the 3-foot tube from your ground sleeve kit, down in the PVC with a length standing above grade.
c. Tilt base — separate the joint between that aluminum tube and the lower slotted fiberglass. The tilt base's lower end is a splice that slips down INTO the aluminum tube, not over it. It only fits one way round.
d. Lower insulator and antenna — everything that sat on the base section now sits on the tilt base.
On the Deck or Concrete Mount: there is no ground sleeve, and the 3-foot aluminum base section is not used; it stays in the box. The lower slotted fiberglass insulator goes straight into the mount's short 9-inch section, and the rest of the antenna stacks on it as usual. With the base section out of the stack, the supplied ladder line reaches the feedpoint as intended.
Unsure which end is up? The drawing settles it.
3. Lowering
1. Loosen all four bolts. Loose is normal — the pivot needs room to swing.
2. Remove the second bolt down. Leave the top bolt in.
3. Face the pole and walk it down hand over hand, letting the geometry carry the weight instead of your back.
4. Raising
1. Walk it up. It stops at vertical on its own — it cannot go past.
2. Put the second bolt back in.
3. Tighten all four. Snug with the Allen wrench, never an impact driver.
5. While It Is Down
Check every bolt. Replace anything rusting with stainless — the 316 Marine Hardware Kit is made for this.
Windy site? Lock washers and Blue Loctite on the aluminum threads — never into the helicoils at the fiberglass insulators, and never Red.
It is also the easiest moment to add the 9' DX Whip — it threads into the top by hand.
Watch it done: N1BRL walks his 24-footer down, retracts the whip, and back up in two minutes → · N3EQF raises his alone in 14 seconds → (an earlier base version — on yours, follow the one rule above).
Full antenna assembly: Assembly Documents →
73, Jon KL2A · Greyline Performance · Sun Valley, Idaho · 435-200-4902