Home | Antennas
After living in an apartment and
trying to do any real hamming
I finally got myself into a house with a back yard.
The first antenna for HF was my "Electric Fence"
antenna. My NVIS
antenna. My STEALTH antenna. Well it
looked like I had an electric fence. I used some of the fiberglass
sticks that are used for small animal fencing. The wire was galvanized.
I started buy connecting two wires to the FC-40 wire tuner. Each
stick was nailed to every 4" X 4" post of the backyard
fence. The two wires were about 3 to 4 inches apart on each stick.
At the end of the fence, which was all the way around the yard
and back to the house, I terminated them together. This antenna
is only six feet above the ground. It tuned all the ham bands
but worked best on 4 and 7 Mhz.
The Tower
This is the 57 foot tower with guys and it's construction.
Right next to the hamshack for short leads and grounding.
Hand mixing each load.
All eight 40 lb. bags of ready mix. My pattern worked
perfect.
The bolts fit just right when the base was dropped
onto the base.
The middle picture is the first day and I had to put some kind
of antenna on top.
My helper, Pat KG4WGF, as line holder.
Attaching the Classic 33 on top. No rotor yet and no top guys
either.
At the very top, at around 65 feet, I have the Arrow 2m-440 antenna.
I later attached the top guys which I fed with 29 feet of 300
ohm feedline the balance is RG-8.
Each leg is around 56 feet. This antenna works on 160 to 54 mhz.
I mainly use it on 80 and 40 meters.
To be safer for the hurricane season I removed two
sections (20 feet) from the tower.
It actually worked out better especially for using the guys for
an antenna.
On June 27th 2007 my landlady stated that she wanted
to sell he property....
We rent and don't plan on being stationary for long.....
So we found an apartment on the second story with a screened balcony.
Pictures to follow..............Back to the STEALTH mode.
Stealth mode is not necessary at the new apartment.
Here are a few shots of the new antennas on the 6th floor.
The antenna on top of the pipe on the large pink box which
is the stairway is the
2 meter 440 Arrow J-Pole. The feedline for it is the
lower wire. The 160 thur 10 meter antenna is the W5GI design antenna. The other vertical is
the Ringo 6 meter antenna.
The total antenna height is around 63 feet from the base of the
2 meter-440 antenna.
I have been working some good DX with this antenna system......and
no tower either.
Well, that didn't last long......
The manager's permission was not quite enough.
For now back to STEALTH mode. Can
you see it?
Click the picture above.
I live on the second floor of an apartment. My screened in porch
is on the west side facing the parking lot. I use 20 gage magnet
wire, 30 lb. nylon fishing line, and small buttons as insulators.
I use two parking lot lights as supports.
I use RG-8x to a line isolator then a lightning arrestor, then to a 4:1 balun. The wire is fed through a piece
of plastic tubing which is between the metal frame of the screen
and the cement wall. A ground wire goes down to two ground rods.
This antenna wire is strong and practically invisible. This set-up
tunes 160 - 6 meters with my auto-tuner at 100 watts.