The Greyline Blog › K8AXJ: 24’ on a Michigan Lake

Operator Spotlight · K8AXJ

Assembled in 20 Minutes, Up in Half an Hour: K8AXJ on the Lake

See the 24’ flagpole K8AXJ runs →

The Install

A tilt mount, a lake, and Old Glory flying

Hira’s install on the water at Six Lakes is a clean one. He mounted the 24-foot Greyline on a tilt base — the right move, because it lets him walk the antenna down for maintenance without a ladder or a crew. (Without a tilt base, many owners simply lift the pole out of its sleeve and lay it down; the 24’ weighs about 26 pounds.) Assembly ran about 20 minutes; the whole installation, under half an hour. His early verdict on 20 meters: performance has been excellent.

That last line is the whole flagpole idea in one sentence. The neighbor sees a flagpole worth saluting. Hira sees his ticket to 160 through 6 meters. Both are correct — because the pole itself is the antenna.

Why It Goes Up Fast

Twenty-minute assembly is a design choice, not luck

A 20-minute build is not an accident of an easy day. It is what happens when an antenna has no radial field to lay, no traps to tune, no coils or stubs to place. A quarter-wave vertical needs a buried lawn of radials to work against; a vertical dipole carries its second element in the air, so the ground work disappears and the install collapses to raising one clean pole. Every splice is bolted in and test-fit at the bench before it ships, which is why the field assembly is mostly confirmation. Why no radials are required — the physics →

An honest note on scope: Hira’s report covers his early time on 20 meters. It is a first impression from a clean install, not a multi-band DXCC log — the kind of report worth more in six months, when the bands have given him a fuller picture. We will share that when it comes. What it already shows is the part that matters on day one: up fast, flying proud, and excellent where he has used it.

Read From the Source

Where waterfront operators compare notes

A waterfront QTH has real advantages. Salt water is a near-perfect ground screen that strengthens a vertical’s low-angle launch; a lake like Hira’s gives a wide-open, quiet horizon with nothing in the way. Operators trade these results constantly:

For the openings on the bands Hira has yet to fully work, the ARRL Propagation Forecast Bulletin is the standing reference. Carried for years by Tad Cook, K7RA, a Silent Key since April 2025; the ARRL continues it in his memory.

Your Station

Up in half an hour, on the air the same day

A 24-foot flagpole that ships pre-fit, raises on a tilt mount in under thirty minutes, needs no radials, and covers 160 through 6 meters with a tuner. That is what Hira put up — and the saluting neighbor came free.

73, Jon KL2A · 435-200-4902

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