Inspired by this thread, I created my own homemade awning. I liked the tent pole concept, but I wanted the awning to shade the upper section of my pop-up, too. This would help the keep the inside of the camper a bit cooler besides providing shade outside.
I bought the Coleman 8 foot, telescoping, steel tent poles from Amazon at $14 each. I put a carabiner on the ends of two ropes which I attached to a cheap Harbor Freight tarp and threw the ropes over the camper top before I raised it and tied them off at the top hole of my corner jack brackets. Then I raised the roof and adjusted the ropes. I then placed one of my purchased tent poles with a guy line and raised it, added a second guy line to that pole. I then placed the second pole with guy lines.*
I had been afraid that the rope to the rear of the camper would slide off, so I placed a line between the ropes to help keep them parallel. It turns out that not only is this not an issue, but I had the opposite problem - the ropes wanted to move closer to each other, thus leaving a dip, or sag, in the middle of the tarp along the camper roof. I "solved" this by adding a small line to the forward carabiner and pulled that line taut over the front edge of the roof and tied it off on my Yakima fairing mount. An alternative would be to place a spreader on that edge of the tarp, but an extra line is easier to carry. Another alternative would be to add a rope to an eye in the tarp between the other two ropes and pull that taut.
Pictured (in my back yard) is this first attempt using a tarp of approximately 5' x 7' feet in size with the long side running front to rear. I have another tarp which is approximately 7' by 9'; I will likely use this larger tarp in the field. If this concept proves itself in the field, I will likely invest in a better quality tarp, though as cheap as these Harbor Freight tarps are (the small was free with purchase the larger was only about four bucks, as I recall) I may just buy more as these get sun weakened or blown out.
*Since I generally camp alone I had a concern that I would have problems raising the tent poles by myself with out them flopping around and collapsing the telescoping sections. To hold the pole up without it flopping side to side, I created a half "xmas tree stand" using a 1" galvanized pipe floor flange, screwed onto a scrap piece of 1x4 board, holding a 6" section of pipe. I can insert the bottom of the pole into the pipe to stabilize the pole while raising it and attaching the guy lines. I can then partially collapse the sections to kick the stand aside to use on the other pole, and re-raise the first pole. I used a single board rather than a full 'x' stand to make it easier to transport. Bill
Edited by Bosque Bill, 11 September 2016 - 05:11 PM.