Thanks for all the great comments and suggestions.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions.  I guess I'll put up the DX-EE first and maybe try the 4BTV in my small yard at a later date.  As far as putting the dipole up on the chimney, do you think I could attach the tv mast stand off brackets directly to the wood siding of my chimney surround?  They would be spaced about 4' apart vertically and there would be about 11' feet of tv mast above the top standoff.  The other option is to lag bolt some 2x4's between studs and then attach the standoff bracket to those.

Thanks.

The chimney is not really centrally located.  I would have to mount the DX-EE as an inverted vee at about 120* angle horizontally (rather than the legs in a straight line) with tie off points for each leg about 20-25 feet away from the center and 8-9' high.  Great comments so far, please keep them coming.

Greg

Oh, no!  Not another post seeking antenna advise...

I'm in a new house and would like to get some input about a permanent antenna.  I'm in a fair sized house, but with a prettly small back yard, about 30' x 20' of grass surrounded by patio/single story wood siding house on 2 sides and planting beds and large hedge on the other sides.  No trees to hang anything from.  I put up a 40M "L" vertical with a single tuned radial running along the top of the wooden fence for a quick and dirty tempy antenna.  Now it is time for something better.

I have a chimney with wood siding surround that is about 16' high on which I can mount a TV mast to get up to about 27' unguyed.  This could support a DX-EE shortened 40/20/15/10M parallel dipole.  Not really any room for a full length wire antenna.  My other option is a 4BTV trapped vertical in the middle of the lawn which I would use with a 30' x 20' cross of 3' wide welded, galvanized wire fencing at the base of the antenna for a ground screen.

I'm going to install one or the other this coming week.  If you could only install one or the other, which would you recommend for a general purpose antenna for casual use, mostly CW?  Thanks in advance for any and all input.

Greg

Follow this link....

http://w2ik.com/W2IK_ANTENNAS.html

It will work very well and there is even a name for this configuration, it is called a quadrant antenna.

This is easy to do with no internal modifications to the rig.  Just connect a 9V battery to the ALC jack on the rear...

+ to ALC ground pin 4
- in series with 220k pot to ALC pin 6

Full details on the radiomods.co.nz website.  Works great.

Thanks for the comments.  I should be ok then.  The ends of the 80-40 meter radials are in the open with at several inches to the nearest wood.  They are wrapped around the side of the garage for the most part and there is no wiring on that garage wall.  The other direction follows about 8 feet of the dining room outside wall and then extends along the patio cover beams to about 15 feet away from the house.  No problems with rf getting into the wiring now, so I'll see what happens when I get an amp and run a little more power.  Again, thanks.

I have a vertical mounted near the edge of the roof which is working very well with my 100 watt rig.  The radials are made from #14AWG solid insulated wire.  Some are just lying on the roof and the longer radials are wrapped around the house under the eaves and are stapled to the 2x4 boards between the house wall and the fascia boards to keep them out of sight.  I'm thinking of getting an amp for use on 75 meters but don't know if my radial installation would be a problem with say about 800 watts power.  Am I ok or do I need to reconfigure my radials to use some type of standoffs to insulate them from the roof?  Thanks in advance for any comments.

I used to live in a modular home that had a metal awning over the carport. I used a trapped vertical mounted to the side of the modular right next to the awning and grounded to it with a 6 or 8 inches of wire.  Worked great.  Depending what bands you want ot operate you could use something like a 6btv grounded to your roof and mounted with one of those DX Engineering fold over mounts.  Raise it up at night or when you want to operate and then lower it down along side the mobile home and out of sight when not in use.  Just a thought.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions.  I guess it's back to the drawing board.

I have a very small yard and about the only place I can locate VHF antennas is on the chimney.  My chimney is mechanically sound and has been built for a moderate earthquake zone.  I'm interested in opinions on the feasability of the following setup...

A mast that will extend about 5-6' above the top of chimney with rotor at top.  Immediately above the rotor would be two Directive System beams, a 4 element 6M beam with 12 ft boom(weight ~10 lbs and windload of 1.3 sq/ft) and then 4' above that a 6 element 2M beam with 8 ft boom (weight ~5 lbs and windload of .7 sq/ft).

Does this combination seem feasible for mounting on a chimney?  Thanks for any input.

I have a Yaesu FR-101 that has a failed voltage regulator on the BFO/Regulator Unit board.  This is a discontinued Motorola part number MFC-6034A and I can't find any cross-reference data for a substitute replacement.  Does anyone have any leads on a suitable replacement?  Thanks.