Rain Gutter Antennas
Created by Greg Danes, KJ4DGE on 2015-02-22
Pic courtesy of N6CC website
By Grey Wolf
I got this idea about writing about my antenna because I had one once in the condo that worked very well down to about 40 meters. First YOU have to use a tuner! Mine was a MFJ "travel tuner". Very simple and the system worked for me.
I ran a open length of coax cable to the aluminum gutter and to a screw at the base, no ground was used as this caused noise on the feed line. It was really resonant at 20 meters and higher. I made my first European contacts on 15 or 17 meters using the gutter antenna.
The whole length was close to 125 feet in an inverted "U-shaped" configuration. Since I could not turn the condo around with a rotator it worked a nice North-South path. It also worked greyline East-West fairly well also making contacts in NM, NV, WA and CA. I also worked quite a few State QSO parties and special event stations with it. Try it if you have a HOA that prohibits outside antennas. It is stealthy but I do not recommend running over 100 watts into it.
Again you really need to tune the thing and I would find the settings that worked best after loading it was 5 watts, writing down the 3 settings for the tuner for each band so I could get to the ballpark quickly.
MFJ "Travel tuner"
I am no "gutter expert". I do know if you don't clean them they can be a problem. As far as using them for antennas this has been around a long time. You have to be careful with the tap point not getting rusted as this causes SWR's and other bad business. Take a brillo pad to the feed point tap. Also if you have a Non-aluminum gutter (plastic) you can snake wire inside as well and load that. The point of course is stealth. The links at the end of the article are really good idea joggers.
Of all the things in this hobby antenna design and use is the most fun for me. Nothing beats a good OCF dipole high in the air between trees in your backyard. Some of us though are strapped with condo living or communities where this is not an option. With the gutter antenna you may get some surprising results as I did.
Try it and let me know how it works for you!
73
KJ4DGE
http://www.sgcworld.com/raingutterinstall.html
| KJ4DGE | 2015-04-07 | |
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| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| It takes a lot of guts to admit you are using such a simple but effective device. So the next time you get to feeling down at not getting into the weekend QSO runoff, and it seems like every HOA is raining on your day. just look up at all that metal around your place and, put on a happy face and say "what the hey" Yes, amazing what those things (gutters) can do eh? Reply to a comment by : WD9FUM on 2015-04-03 I have worked North and South America and Europe with a IC-706, a tuner, and the gutters on my house. | ||
| WD9FUM | 2015-04-03 | |
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| Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| I have worked North and South America and Europe with a IC-706, a tuner, and the gutters on my house. | ||
| N6CC | 2015-03-31 | |
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| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| It would take a LOT of power for that to work. Remember, this antenna is water cooled! HiHi Tim N6CC Reply to a comment by : KW4JX on 2015-03-17 Could you put a few kilowatts up it to clean the gutters? Reply to a comment by : AA4MB on 2015-03-12 N4JOY was spot on. Listen and take to heart about 50% of the theory you read and what anyone (including us) will tell you. But experiment your hind end off. I actually had decent HF antennas as a teenager, but I still loaded up everything but a wet cat in an attempt to find out what would radiate and what would not. It turns out that nearly everything will, to some extent. Days in which there is a lot of background noise and very low solar flux will be harder days than others to be heard - but you *will* be heard. Like a few other respondents indicated, you're hard pressed to find anybody that still listens to TV signals straight through the ether nowadays. In that sense, cable and satellite TV have been a godsend for hams. So many are defeated before they even try, though. I look at HOAs (yes, been there, lived there - never again) as challenges to work around. Forget about feed line losses, the perfect connection, etc. In your quest to get on the air, like so many have said ... anything is better than nothing. Except for wet cats - they won't stay still long enough. Reply to a comment by : N4JOY on 2015-02-25 I enjoyed this article. When I was in my teens, I loaded anything and everything via my MFJ tuner that was conductive and made contacts: gutters, chainlink fences, poles, scrap wire, etc. Experimentation is how I learned. The quote "better a crappy antenna than no antenna" is spot on. Many of us spend way too much time obsessing about the "perfect" antenna and set-up rather than actually getting on the air and talking. You don't need a "big gun" 7 element monobander running 1KW to get on HF! | ||
| KW4JX | 2015-03-17 | |
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| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| Could you put a few kilowatts up it to clean the gutters? Reply to a comment by : AA4MB on 2015-03-12 N4JOY was spot on. Listen and take to heart about 50% of the theory you read and what anyone (including us) will tell you. But experiment your hind end off. I actually had decent HF antennas as a teenager, but I still loaded up everything but a wet cat in an attempt to find out what would radiate and what would not. It turns out that nearly everything will, to some extent. Days in which there is a lot of background noise and very low solar flux will be harder days than others to be heard - but you *will* be heard. Like a few other respondents indicated, you're hard pressed to find anybody that still listens to TV signals straight through the ether nowadays. In that sense, cable and satellite TV have been a godsend for hams. So many are defeated before they even try, though. I look at HOAs (yes, been there, lived there - never again) as challenges to work around. Forget about feed line losses, the perfect connection, etc. In your quest to get on the air, like so many have said ... anything is better than nothing. Except for wet cats - they won't stay still long enough. Reply to a comment by : N4JOY on 2015-02-25 I enjoyed this article. When I was in my teens, I loaded anything and everything via my MFJ tuner that was conductive and made contacts: gutters, chainlink fences, poles, scrap wire, etc. Experimentation is how I learned. The quote "better a crappy antenna than no antenna" is spot on. Many of us spend way too much time obsessing about the "perfect" antenna and set-up rather than actually getting on the air and talking. You don't need a "big gun" 7 element monobander running 1KW to get on HF! | ||
| AA4MB | 2015-03-12 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| N4JOY was spot on. Listen and take to heart about 50% of the theory you read and what anyone (including us) will tell you. But experiment your hind end off. I actually had decent HF antennas as a teenager, but I still loaded up everything but a wet cat in an attempt to find out what would radiate and what would not. It turns out that nearly everything will, to some extent. Days in which there is a lot of background noise and very low solar flux will be harder days than others to be heard - but you *will* be heard. Like a few other respondents indicated, you're hard pressed to find anybody that still listens to TV signals straight through the ether nowadays. In that sense, cable and satellite TV have been a godsend for hams. So many are defeated before they even try, though. I look at HOAs (yes, been there, lived there - never again) as challenges to work around. Forget about feed line losses, the perfect connection, etc. In your quest to get on the air, like so many have said ... anything is better than nothing. Except for wet cats - they won't stay still long enough. Reply to a comment by : N4JOY on 2015-02-25 I enjoyed this article. When I was in my teens, I loaded anything and everything via my MFJ tuner that was conductive and made contacts: gutters, chainlink fences, poles, scrap wire, etc. Experimentation is how I learned. The quote "better a crappy antenna than no antenna" is spot on. Many of us spend way too much time obsessing about the "perfect" antenna and set-up rather than actually getting on the air and talking. You don't need a "big gun" 7 element monobander running 1KW to get on HF! | ||
| N6CC | 2015-03-10 | |
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| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| In your situation you might try using electric fence insulators on top of the fence posts - and run antenna wire through them to insulate it from the metal fence fabric. Some RF energy will couple into the fence/ground but it might work well enough for your purposes. A friend has run long Beverage receiving antennas using this method. He used short PVC "posts" held up by simply dropping the PVC pipe over a piece of re-bar hammered into the soil. Works great for directional receiving - if you have the linear space. Might work OK on transmit as well, but not as a classic Beverage. May be cheap enough to try? N6CC Reply to a comment by : K4LFP on 2015-03-10 I know an operator whom was successful with the rain gutter concept on 80 meters. Worked well, got me thinking about the following...... Anyone who is familiar with woven wire fence, used on farmland will understand. At times I have thought about loading up a length of fence along my property. If successful, it would be several hundred feet in length. Now after reading the gutter antenna article, I have to try the woven wire fence antenna. | ||
| K4LFP | 2015-03-10 | |
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| Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| I know an operator whom was successful with the rain gutter concept on 80 meters. Worked well, got me thinking about the following...... Anyone who is familiar with woven wire fence, used on farmland will understand. At times I have thought about loading up a length of fence along my property. If successful, it would be several hundred feet in length. Now after reading the gutter antenna article, I have to try the woven wire fence antenna. | ||
| KJ4DGE | 2015-03-06 | |
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| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| Don't see why not. The only issue is the signal may get absobed by proximity to the house. The farther out you can take it the better from the gutters. Reply to a comment by : AC8SW on 2015-03-05 If I'm looking for mechanical support instead of stealth, can I hang an insulated wire dipole on the rain gutters and get reasonable performance? Reply to a comment by : K9RBH on 2015-03-04 Now I'm wondering how my metal roof would work. Only one way to find out... | ||
| AC8SW | 2015-03-05 | |
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| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| If I'm looking for mechanical support instead of stealth, can I hang an insulated wire dipole on the rain gutters and get reasonable performance? Reply to a comment by : K9RBH on 2015-03-04 Now I'm wondering how my metal roof would work. Only one way to find out... | ||
| K9RBH | 2015-03-04 | |
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| Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| Now I'm wondering how my metal roof would work. Only one way to find out... | ||
| N6CAZ | 2015-03-01 | |
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| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| I tried this too...but by accident at first. I was in a 2-story apartment and struggled to find anything but a wire dangling from my patio (and using the iron railing for a ground) with my Icom AH-4 tuner. One day I noticed signals on 40m and 80m were sometimes really strong, and there was an occasional "crackle" in the receiver that sounded like a bad connection. Turns out the wire I had hanging from a clip from the patio cover had a bare spot and was touching the metal gutter. So, I did what any ham would do...make a solid connection. I attached a wire to a screw holding the downspout to the gutter, and things REALLY came to life. Noise increase was minimal, and gains from 20m to 10m were hit or miss, but 40m and 80m were night and day different! Wish I could still do that...I get S-8 noise on 80m now, and signals are buried in it. Don't have access to the gutter here and no metal railing for a ground/counterpoise. Still making do though! Reply to a comment by : N6CC on 2015-02-28 Hi Randy - Short answer: Whatever works for you! If you connect near the ground end it makes it easier to ground the coax shield to a ground stake/stealthy radials. If you just use a wire lead-in "further up" like me in a few places, that is part of the radiating system too, so lengths are somewhat arbitrary. RF safety - be aware. If downspout contact is an issue, don't do it - or replace that part with PVC and run a wire inside it to bypass it. Use of a matching device is pretty much a given in any case. A few old steel gutters are still around, seams can be coupled with a few sheet metal screws or just ignored. My old ones were soldered together by the builder (no leaks). You can run a dedicated wire inside or outside the gutters but that is a further complication if you want, or need, to go to that complication. Rectification caused by corrosion or dissimilar metals has not been a problem for me but something to be aware of; I run low power... Essentially no over-the-air TV transmissions out here and the days of TVI caused by ancient TV receivers with 21 MHz IF amplifiers are long gone. So my advice is experiment with gutters if you have few other options. To me, that's the fun part anyway. A wire in the air is certainly a better antenna - if you can do that. 73, Tim N6CC Reply to a comment by : KA4NMA on 2015-02-27 Where is the best place to connect a wire to the rain gutter? Near the ground with a longer lead connector wire? Or a couple feet up with a short connector wire? What size wire? Randy Ka4nma Reply to a comment by : KW4JA on 2015-02-26 If the government takes over the internet it won't be half fast. It will be skinny assed. | ||
| N6CC | 2015-02-28 | |
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| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| Hi Randy - Short answer: Whatever works for you! If you connect near the ground end it makes it easier to ground the coax shield to a ground stake/stealthy radials. If you just use a wire lead-in "further up" like me in a few places, that is part of the radiating system too, so lengths are somewhat arbitrary. RF safety - be aware. If downspout contact is an issue, don't do it - or replace that part with PVC and run a wire inside it to bypass it. Use of a matching device is pretty much a given in any case. A few old steel gutters are still around, seams can be coupled with a few sheet metal screws or just ignored. My old ones were soldered together by the builder (no leaks). You can run a dedicated wire inside or outside the gutters but that is a further complication if you want, or need, to go to that complication. Rectification caused by corrosion or dissimilar metals has not been a problem for me but something to be aware of; I run low power... Essentially no over-the-air TV transmissions out here and the days of TVI caused by ancient TV receivers with 21 MHz IF amplifiers are long gone. So my advice is experiment with gutters if you have few other options. To me, that's the fun part anyway. A wire in the air is certainly a better antenna - if you can do that. 73, Tim N6CC Reply to a comment by : KA4NMA on 2015-02-27 Where is the best place to connect a wire to the rain gutter? Near the ground with a longer lead connector wire? Or a couple feet up with a short connector wire? What size wire? Randy Ka4nma Reply to a comment by : KW4JA on 2015-02-26 If the government takes over the internet it won't be half fast. It will be skinny assed. | ||
| KE4ZHN | 2015-02-28 | |
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| Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| As someone already pointed out, the main issue with this is bad connections between the gutter sections. You would probably be better off lying a wire inside the gutter or on top of the roof and tuning it up instead. | ||
| KA4NMA | 2015-02-27 | |
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| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| Where is the best place to connect a wire to the rain gutter? Near the ground with a longer lead connector wire? Or a couple feet up with a short connector wire? What size wire? Randy Ka4nma Reply to a comment by : KW4JA on 2015-02-26 If the government takes over the internet it won't be half fast. It will be skinny assed. | ||
| KA4NMA | 2015-02-27 | |
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| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| Where is the best place to connect a wire to the rain gutter? Near the ground with a longer lead connector wire? Or a couple feet up with a short connector wire? What size wire? Randy Ka4nma Reply to a comment by : KW4JA on 2015-02-26 If the government takes over the internet it won't be half fast. It will be skinny assed. | ||
| KW4JA | 2015-02-26 | |
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| Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| If the government takes over the internet it won't be half fast. It will be skinny assed. | ||
| KJ4DGE | 2015-02-26 | |
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| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| AJ6PQ What a great way to find a date! I can fix that stereo problem! LOL Reply to a comment by : WB6CVR on 2015-02-24 In my college days, long ago in San Diego, the two storey apartment building right next to campus has easy access to the roof via decorative cinder blocks with footholds in them. The roof was flat and right outside the bedroom window along an alley to the back parking area was a rain gutter. I ran coax out of the room, behind the rain gutter to the spout, then up the downspout to the roof. On the roof, I strung a full size 40 meter dipole about 18 inches off the roof and used vent pipes to secure the two ends. It worked great but caused immense crosstalk in the stereo of the girls who lived on the second floor above be. Nothing was visible from street level. Reply to a comment by : WD8OOJ on 2015-02-24 All i need to say is , 2 thumbs up, LOVE articals that are useful in the shack rather then some political items that we cannot control generally . GREAT writeup and i think ALOT would agree that it will be of use ALOT . KP | ||
| KJ4DGE | 2015-02-25 | |
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| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| LOL its my guttural opinion :) Reply to a comment by : KL7AJ on 2015-02-24 It works fine, except on phone you might sound a little guttural. | ||
| KJ4DGE | 2015-02-25 | |
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| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| Also on Europa Reply to a comment by : AD5VM on 2015-02-22 I thought 'East-West greyline' was only possible on Uranus. | ||
| N4JOY | 2015-02-25 | |
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| Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| I enjoyed this article. When I was in my teens, I loaded anything and everything via my MFJ tuner that was conductive and made contacts: gutters, chainlink fences, poles, scrap wire, etc. Experimentation is how I learned. The quote "better a crappy antenna than no antenna" is spot on. Many of us spend way too much time obsessing about the "perfect" antenna and set-up rather than actually getting on the air and talking. You don't need a "big gun" 7 element monobander running 1KW to get on HF! | ||
| KA4KOE | 2015-02-24 | |
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| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| AJ: RIM SHOT Reply to a comment by : KL7AJ on 2015-02-24 It works fine, except on phone you might sound a little guttural. | ||
| KL7AJ | 2015-02-24 | |
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| Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| It works fine, except on phone you might sound a little guttural. | ||
| WB6CVR | 2015-02-24 | |
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| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| In my college days, long ago in San Diego, the two storey apartment building right next to campus has easy access to the roof via decorative cinder blocks with footholds in them. The roof was flat and right outside the bedroom window along an alley to the back parking area was a rain gutter. I ran coax out of the room, behind the rain gutter to the spout, then up the downspout to the roof. On the roof, I strung a full size 40 meter dipole about 18 inches off the roof and used vent pipes to secure the two ends. It worked great but caused immense crosstalk in the stereo of the girls who lived on the second floor above be. Nothing was visible from street level. Reply to a comment by : WD8OOJ on 2015-02-24 All i need to say is , 2 thumbs up, LOVE articals that are useful in the shack rather then some political items that we cannot control generally . GREAT writeup and i think ALOT would agree that it will be of use ALOT . KP | ||
| WD8OOJ | 2015-02-24 | |
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| Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| All i need to say is , 2 thumbs up, LOVE articals that are useful in the shack rather then some political items that we cannot control generally . GREAT writeup and i think ALOT would agree that it will be of use ALOT . KP | ||
| KJ4DGE | 2015-02-23 | |
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| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| I guess the main point here is lower power, do the best you can to cut down on TVI, basically I do not know of anyone who was running conventional OTA receive for TV in my hood. Also the main thing is the ground return path noise was very bad so no ground, just tap and go. It could be a bear to tune at 40 but once there it was sweet.When you have that much metal to play with why not. The RF burn issue is not a problem in a closed community with fencing around your place. In a house more so I guess. Even so you can see if people are around the place hopefully before you key up. If they are hanging onto your rain gutter... are they trying to scale it to do a B&E? :) Reply to a comment by : WB5X on 2015-02-23 I have used rain gutters in the past with varying success. Also, I have used chain link fences in the past with varying success. I will use just about anything that I think can be used in order to get on the air. | ||
| WB5X | 2015-02-23 | |
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| Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| I have used rain gutters in the past with varying success. Also, I have used chain link fences in the past with varying success. I will use just about anything that I think can be used in order to get on the air. | ||
| KQ6XA | 2015-02-23 | |
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| Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| Rain gutter antennas work better if you use a continuous insulated wire in the gutter, or along side it. Connect to the wire, not the gutter. Also, feed it up high like a dipole, not as a vertical against ground. | ||
| W8LV | 2015-02-23 | |
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| Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| While I have ot tried this,if you have a plastic gutter and live in the typical rectangular apartment top floor, you have hit paydirt! Think Half Square... the long horizontal section goes in the top eavestroughs, the quarter wave vertical tails go in the downspouts. Bonus Points for being in a corner apartment to feed it. I dont know how you are going to get it up there, though...perhaps a sympathetic buddy who works for Cable TV might come over on a lunch hour and assist you with a cherry basket, complete with the hard hat logo and uniform officialdom attire. If you had the antenna all premade and assembled, this would take no time. Taking a picture of said building, and having a pre-known dimension of a window. door, etc., will allow you to figure the dimensions precisely. What I DO know about half squares is that whilst the books say the dimemsions must be precise,in reality, this just isn't 100% true. | ||
| N4KZ | 2015-02-23 | |
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| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| A rain gutter antenna is less than ideal but it's a lot better than nothing. It was 1975 and my new bride and I moved into an apartment complex in Sterling Heights, Michigan. I was eager to get back on the air. When no one was looking, I ran a short piece of No. 12 wire out the window of my first floor apartment and put it under a sheet metal screw. Quick and easy antenna. Since our building was 3 stories tall, the vertical downspout was about 30 feet tall, give or take. I lowered the power output from my Yaesu down to about 20 watts to avoid RFI issues and promptly began working all around North America easily on CW. Europe and the Marshall Islands also found their way into my log. No one ever knew I was playing ham radio from the apartment. 73, N4KZ Reply to a comment by : N6RK on 2015-02-23 Rain gutters are notorious for having poor electrical contacts at joints that act as diodes and cause severe TVI merely because an antenna is near them. Trying to drive the gutter itself as an antenna is really asking for trouble. You might get away with it in an HOA if 100% of the residents are using cable/satellite TV and/or if there are no low VHF TV channels. Reply to a comment by : KE1U on 2015-02-23 When I first moved to Boston in the 80's, we were in the top floor of a brown stone with copper gutters. I fed the gutter outside our window and laid a counterpoise on the apartment floor. Worked Europe easily with no local RFI (that I know of - hi). By the way, with painted aluminum gutters, you can have continuity issues at the junctions, which could add to RFI woes if you are running more than QRP. | ||
| N6RK | 2015-02-23 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| Rain gutters are notorious for having poor electrical contacts at joints that act as diodes and cause severe TVI merely because an antenna is near them. Trying to drive the gutter itself as an antenna is really asking for trouble. You might get away with it in an HOA if 100% of the residents are using cable/satellite TV and/or if there are no low VHF TV channels. Reply to a comment by : KE1U on 2015-02-23 When I first moved to Boston in the 80's, we were in the top floor of a brown stone with copper gutters. I fed the gutter outside our window and laid a counterpoise on the apartment floor. Worked Europe easily with no local RFI (that I know of - hi). By the way, with painted aluminum gutters, you can have continuity issues at the junctions, which could add to RFI woes if you are running more than QRP. | ||
| KE1U | 2015-02-23 | |
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| Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| When I first moved to Boston in the 80's, we were in the top floor of a brown stone with copper gutters. I fed the gutter outside our window and laid a counterpoise on the apartment floor. Worked Europe easily with no local RFI (that I know of - hi). By the way, with painted aluminum gutters, you can have continuity issues at the junctions, which could add to RFI woes if you are running more than QRP. | ||
| NB5N | 2015-02-23 | |
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| Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| I have the potential for a version of this antenna that uses the metal capping around the top of the parapet wall of my flat roof. The total length of the capping around the roof is 414 feet, so I could have any length up to that. The flat roof configuration would also allow me to configure the antenna as a loop, a dipole, off center fed, or end fed design. The metal capping is new but not seamless, but I could easily attach jumpers between the sections for continuity. Since the roof is 20 ft above ground, I don't have to worry about RF burns from a downspout. I have a few questions; 1) What is the best configuration? 2) What is the optimal length? 3) Are there any fire considerations, particularly if running up to 600 watts? 4) Is it worth the trouble? I currently have an OCF with a 25 ft apex that does pretty well. -Dave | ||
| N1DVJ | 2015-02-23 | |
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| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| I did this back in 1981 when I lived in Texas. The complex went cable, and I fed a length of coax through the old antenna hole in my bedroom to the rain gutter outside. Maybe 8 feet of coax to my Swan. I didn't use the ground. I loosened up the mounts for the gutter and put 'rubber' under each one before tightening it back down, hoping to add some degree of insulation. At each of the joints in the downspout I drilled two small holes and put in self-tapping screws to connect from section to section. Then at the immediate horizontal pieces, I pried the mounts loose and slipped in thin sheets of plastic. Only ever used it on 40 and 15M, but it worked ok with the tuner (or playing with the Swan before I got a tuner). Never ran over 50W out. Can't say good or bad, since it was the only antenna I had for over a year, except for the 10M dipole I taped to the ceiling of my bedroom. Hey, even a crappy antenna is better than no antenna. Reply to a comment by : KA4NMA on 2015-02-23 I have been checking out rain gutter antennas on the web. One person used coax with the center conductor connected to the gutter and tuner. The shield was not connected to anything. He said that it cut down on interference. I have some surplus rg6 that I could use or should I use wire? Randy ka4nma Reply to a comment by : N4QA on 2015-02-23 Here's what I use on 160 - 6 meters: http://www.n4qa.com/dsw/%b5Chameleon/GADS_antenna.JPG http://www.n4qa.com/dsw/%b5Chameleon/GADS_feedpoint_and_tuner.JPG and here's a sample of my results running 600 microwatts erp on 160m and tens of milliwatts on hf: http://www.reversebeacon.net/dxsd1/dxsd1.php?f=0&c=n4qa&t=dx no problem... 72, Bill, N4QA | ||
| KA4NMA | 2015-02-23 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| I have been checking out rain gutter antennas on the web. One person used coax with the center conductor connected to the gutter and tuner. The shield was not connected to anything. He said that it cut down on interference. I have some surplus rg6 that I could use or should I use wire? Randy ka4nma Reply to a comment by : N4QA on 2015-02-23 Here's what I use on 160 - 6 meters: http://www.n4qa.com/dsw/%b5Chameleon/GADS_antenna.JPG http://www.n4qa.com/dsw/%b5Chameleon/GADS_feedpoint_and_tuner.JPG and here's a sample of my results running 600 microwatts erp on 160m and tens of milliwatts on hf: http://www.reversebeacon.net/dxsd1/dxsd1.php?f=0&c=n4qa&t=dx no problem... 72, Bill, N4QA | ||
| N4QA | 2015-02-23 | |
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| Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| Here's what I use on 160 - 6 meters: http://www.n4qa.com/dsw/%b5Chameleon/GADS_antenna.JPG http://www.n4qa.com/dsw/%b5Chameleon/GADS_feedpoint_and_tuner.JPG and here's a sample of my results running 600 microwatts erp on 160m and tens of milliwatts on hf: http://www.reversebeacon.net/dxsd1/dxsd1.php?f=0&c=n4qa&t=dx no problem... 72, Bill, N4QA | ||
| KE4ZHN | 2015-02-23 | |
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| Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| A great way to fool the HOA commandos. I worked a fellow who had a wire hidden inside a plastic rain gutter. It actually had a pretty decent signal considering the limitations of the set up. | ||
| KC5MO | 2015-02-23 | |
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| Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| It does work quite well, especially if you have seamless gutters. I thought it would be interesting if you were having gutters installed across a long span to have a small gap where you use a fiberglass section of about 4 inches and make a dipole. Herb KC5MO | ||
| W0AEW | 2015-02-22 | |
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| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| I was wondering about rf burns, too. Reply to a comment by : N0IU on 2015-02-22 Nice article, especially the links! Reply to a comment by : VE3XQQ on 2015-02-22 Very cool idea, desperation leads to insperation and with a bit of persperation you get it done. When I was in uniform and livining in married quarters, I did something similar. I was in a row house and I managed to to set up W8JK bidirectional beam using the gutters on both front and rear that loaded without a tuner on 80 and 40. Those were the days my friend... 73 de VE3XQQ, Frank Reply to a comment by : W3TTT on 2015-02-22 "...Since I could not turn the condo around with a rotator..." I am trying to imagine what the HOA committee would say if they saw your condo "turning around" on its base... Hihihi Joe, W3TTT | ||
| AA4PB | 2015-02-22 | |
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| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| One word of caution. Keep the power down because if some little kid touches the downspout while you are transmitting it could be a shocking experience. Reply to a comment by : SWL2002 on 2015-02-22 For plastic gutters, run a wire inside them and load that up. Reply to a comment by : N0IU on 2015-02-22 Nice article, especially the links! Reply to a comment by : VE3XQQ on 2015-02-22 Very cool idea, desperation leads to insperation and with a bit of persperation you get it done. When I was in uniform and livining in married quarters, I did something similar. I was in a row house and I managed to to set up W8JK bidirectional beam using the gutters on both front and rear that loaded without a tuner on 80 and 40. Those were the days my friend... 73 de VE3XQQ, Frank Reply to a comment by : W3TTT on 2015-02-22 "...Since I could not turn the condo around with a rotator..." I am trying to imagine what the HOA committee would say if they saw your condo "turning around" on its base... Hihihi Joe, W3TTT | ||
| SWL2002 | 2015-02-22 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| For plastic gutters, run a wire inside them and load that up. Reply to a comment by : N0IU on 2015-02-22 Nice article, especially the links! Reply to a comment by : VE3XQQ on 2015-02-22 Very cool idea, desperation leads to insperation and with a bit of persperation you get it done. When I was in uniform and livining in married quarters, I did something similar. I was in a row house and I managed to to set up W8JK bidirectional beam using the gutters on both front and rear that loaded without a tuner on 80 and 40. Those were the days my friend... 73 de VE3XQQ, Frank Reply to a comment by : W3TTT on 2015-02-22 "...Since I could not turn the condo around with a rotator..." I am trying to imagine what the HOA committee would say if they saw your condo "turning around" on its base... Hihihi Joe, W3TTT | ||
| N0IU | 2015-02-22 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| Nice article, especially the links! Reply to a comment by : VE3XQQ on 2015-02-22 Very cool idea, desperation leads to insperation and with a bit of persperation you get it done. When I was in uniform and livining in married quarters, I did something similar. I was in a row house and I managed to to set up W8JK bidirectional beam using the gutters on both front and rear that loaded without a tuner on 80 and 40. Those were the days my friend... 73 de VE3XQQ, Frank Reply to a comment by : W3TTT on 2015-02-22 "...Since I could not turn the condo around with a rotator..." I am trying to imagine what the HOA committee would say if they saw your condo "turning around" on its base... Hihihi Joe, W3TTT | ||
| VE3XQQ | 2015-02-22 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| Very cool idea, desperation leads to insperation and with a bit of persperation you get it done. When I was in uniform and livining in married quarters, I did something similar. I was in a row house and I managed to to set up W8JK bidirectional beam using the gutters on both front and rear that loaded without a tuner on 80 and 40. Those were the days my friend... 73 de VE3XQQ, Frank Reply to a comment by : W3TTT on 2015-02-22 "...Since I could not turn the condo around with a rotator..." I am trying to imagine what the HOA committee would say if they saw your condo "turning around" on its base... Hihihi Joe, W3TTT | ||
| K9ZF | 2015-02-22 | |
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| Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| I done this once a few years back, and it worked surprisingly well. I was living in a two story house, with aluminum gutters. Just as the author did, I ran coax to the bottom of one of the down spouts. I also added a ground rod, and a counter poise. The counter poise was probably 100' of wire laying on the ground, next to the foundation behind the flower bed... I was using an MFJ945D tuner, and a Yaesu FT101E. This setup worked really well on 40 and above. I even made some contacts on 75, but I'm sure it was down quite a bit from a full size dipole. The vertical portion of the downspout was close to 20', and the horizontal portion somewhere around 70'. Considering how "improvised" this setup was, I was impressed how well it worked. My next plan was "hide" a 40 meter loop of wire under the eaves of the house. But I ended up moving before I tried this one :-) The next house had some nice trees where I put up and "invisible" 75 meter dipole... 73 & have fun, Dan K9ZF | ||
| W6ZKH | 2015-02-22 | |
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| Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| Wonder if I can get my plastic gutters to load?? hi... there is a guy using QRP on 20M that uses rain gutter as his antenna, and does quite well with it... back in the 1960 solar cycle, if you could load a wet noodle on 10M, you could work the world. I'd say, give it a try if that is all you have to work with. | ||
| N6CIC | 2015-02-22 | |
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| Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| Terrific article! I have a house in California in an HOA restricted neighborhood (I think all new developments in California are HOA restricted), and have tried portable verticals (Buddistick) which I have to take down and put away so the HOA police don't see it. That is a pain and a gutter antenna may be the way to go. Scott N6CIC/4 | ||
| AD5VM | 2015-02-22 | |
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| Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| I thought 'East-West greyline' was only possible on Uranus. | ||
| VE3PP | 2015-02-22 | |
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| Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| Good article and one that could help get a lot of condo bound hams back on the air. Another stealth antenna using gutters is the Christmas Lights Antenna. Years ago I used to power my string of Christmas lights that were on the front of the house from an extension cord that came into my shack via the window and plugged into a timer. The total length of the string of lights was 50 feet. I had a 25 foot extension cord in line. So total length of 150 feet of wire. A compressed loop! One night for the fun of it I unplugged the extension cord and connected a pig tailed coax to it and connected that to the tuner. It loaded up just fine on 40 meters and I had QSO with a friend of mine across town to test it out. Worked great, had a booming signal with 10 watts on SSB. Left it hooked up and tried it the next day with 100 watts. No RF in the shack, and made some contacts down into eastern parts of USA. So it worked pretty well considering the gutters are only about 9 feet off the ground. If you had a 2 story house and could put the lights up higher then that would work better. Of course you have to leave those lights up all year round, (which some people do) but at least you are on the air. No, I did not check to see if the lights were flickering off and on when I talked! But I would imagine if you were running some power they would be. Light show for the neighbors! | ||
| W3TTT | 2015-02-22 | |
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| Rain Gutter Antennas | ||
| "...Since I could not turn the condo around with a rotator..." I am trying to imagine what the HOA committee would say if they saw your condo "turning around" on its base... Hihihi Joe, W3TTT | ||
