So I went through the whole rigamaroll with my s9 v31.  Got it installed, made a few contacts, then the contractor that owns the lot behind my house caught wind that I had semi-perma-installed an antenna back there.

I did not want to bury the radials, since we plan on moving in < 12 months.  

I did not want to leave my spool of 214u laying in the grass, since it would get run over by lawn mowers and kids.

I packed up the v31 Wednesday.  Now I have a 7200 sitting downstairs without an antenna.


The place is a rental, so I (as well as the owner) are not keen on me installing a gable tower in one of the eves of the roof.  I have no tall trees.

am thinking of an MFJ 1796 or a Comet CHA250g . Either will get me through the next 11 months, and keep me in the god graces of the neighbors.  Any other ideas?

I'm not help but I know the large ham forums like Eham and QRZ have whole subforums for HOA type stuff. I browse thru it from time to time just to gain appreciation.

Have you thought about a mobile antenna that you could temporarly clamp to a balcony or maybe a screwdriver antenna that you could install on a tripod as a solution ?

http://wolfrivercoils.com/products/sb_port-base-vert-antenna.php

Did you have an autotuner for the s9?

I'd either do a wire "something" or do a short vertical like a buddiestick with a long military whip. I've run that setup and
found it preferable to everything else that was easily portable (and it greatly outperformed low dipoles of any type.)

One of these:

http://goverticalusa.com/featured/antenna-tripod-29ft-aluminum-portable-tower-mast-kit.html

Which you put up like this:

http://www.arrl.org/files/file/QST%20Binaries/Jun2011/QS0611Dixon.mp4

(If you right click and "save as" you can save this mpeg video for future reference.  It is quite large, so why download it over and over again?)


And you can use it to put up one of these:

http://www.hamuniverse.com/ae5jufielddayantenna.html

which will work 75, 40, 20 meters without a tuner, or 75, 40, 20, 17, 15, 10 meters with a tuner.

Or hang a pulley on top to hoist up the balun for an OCFD.  You can probably fit a small 66' (40, 20, 10 m) OCFD in your yard as an inverted Vee.

That mast is worth every penny.  I and several friends have them.

Don't get discouraged and throw in the towel just yet.

If you are going to run a vertical you need radials....there are no shortcuts. You can't defy the laws of physics and make an antenna work without them.  Any vertical antenna without radials is nothing more than an air cooled dummy load. Its just not going to work worth a damn without them.

Even if used a remote antenna tuner at the base of your 31' S9 antenna, you would still need radials to make it radiate efficiently. Radials are the "other half" of the antenna for a ground mounted vertical....you can't live without them.

Radials don't have to be thick or heavy, many guys just use 26 gauge wire tacked to the ground with yard staples. Others use a sidewalk edger to bury them. You can also bury your coax by the same method as long as its rated "direct burial". After a few rains you won't even know they are there.

If you don't have trees for a dipole, consider getting a Hustler trapped vertical instead of the Comet or the MFJ. The Hustler 5BVT is a good antenna that would most certainly run circles around either one of those antennas. It too will need radials, but usually you can get by with 3 resonant length radials per band in order to get it to work. The best part is that once the Huster is properly tuned, you won't need to bother with an antenna tuner for most bands.

Derek45, (a member here) has a Hustler trapped vertical and swears by it.  You might want to ask him how he has his antenna set up.

Good luck!

http://swap.qth.com/view_ad.php?counter=1144755

No relation to the seller.

Get an AH 4 and tune your rain gutters?

Use your vertical with a petlowany coil for your ground plane. Here is a link for a guy that did it with an antenna. http://www.n0lx.com/petlowany_ground.html. Also on the the s9 vertical yahoo group there are quite a few guys that went this route with good results.

I've got a MFJ-1796 and it has tuned OK as built, without any pre-installation pruning (no tuning tools when I was getting things together).  A vertical di-pole, it has capacitance hats & coils top and bottom, so no requirement for radials.

Although I could tune for a useably low SWR on 80m, when actual performance is compared with a 130' OCF dipole the difference is very noticeable. Adjust for a comfortable audio level on an 80m contact, then switch to the OCF and the audio becomes uncomfortably louder. Differences at higher band freqs are nowhere nearly as noticeable.  (This is just an observation, and not an issue as it is not advertised as covering 80m...)

If you do get a 1796, I'd recommend doing what I did and loosen each electrical connection (such as the bridges between coils and the capacitance hat components), coat with OxGard or Penetrox, and then  re-tighten .  I also sealed coax cut ends with a few coats of liquid electrical tape.  This may be paranoia on my part, but so far, no issues.

Nick

I'd give the buddipole a hard look. It can be used as a very good vertical down to 20m. You can use a full sized config for it so the radiation efficiency is good, it works ok as a base loaded vertical on 40m and 80m. It takes maybe 10min to setup/teardown as a vertical. If you have an elevated deck or get the long mast, then you can use it as dipole (setup time is about the same). Its probably not the cheapest option, but it is very flexible, and you can upgrade as you go.

Link to BP manual and a good general intro to antennas

So your land lord was ok with it as long as it wasn't mounted to the house? The only reason your are considering this is because of a busy body neighbor?


Tell him to MYOB. Keep using it until your are threatened on paper with something.

THIS

random wire in trees for now while you decide further....keeps you on the air!

http://www.w8afx.com/



I liked so much I ordered a spare.



Comes complete with ground rods which will give you a complete antenna, not like a yard full of radials but it got me "'cross the pond" within 15 minutes from box to contact.

The vertical has been sold.  I don't have an antenna.

End fed wire.

^^^^ What he said! ^^^^

Go to a paint store where nobody knows yyou and buy the mistakes they make. Runs about a buck a gallon. Get 10.

Leave them with the neighborhood kids and leave town with witnesses for a weekend.

Come home and set our antenna back up.

When he complains tell him there's a whole lot more paint where that came from if he doesn't STFU.

No brushes needed, Just have the kids dump it on his lawn and take the cans with them.



ETA the going rate here for a hit is a couple dozen donuts and a case of Mountain Dew.  Halloween the kids run a special, half off.   YMMV.

I was amazed at the EF-20 vs the 5btv on the hill at 1800ft when I compared them.  The par-endfedz wasn't even optimal setup.  Granted the endfedz WAS sloped into the 5btv's radial zone.

I bought an EF-40 as soon as I had internet again.

Be expecting USIOTA activations soon.  I promise I will post when I go active from here on out.

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

I remember once when I was about 8 some new people moved in next door to my parents. One day dad was outside and the guy next door was complaining about something my mom/dad had done.



I still remember to this day my dad going "Maybe you should mind your own fucking business". I'm 43 now and was in business with my dad for 25 years and I think that he only used that word one other time, when a guy teed off on the golf course and hit him.



Anyway a few months later right after they moved in they moved out of a brand new house.



Just saying.



 

Guys, this isn't GD.

The antenna has been uninstalled, packed up, and sold for more than I had in it.

An Elmer from my club heard me ragchewing on the way home, heard me say I was contemplating an MFJ 1796.  He has one in his garage he's not using.  He gave it to me, and even delivered it.  It is leaning in my backyard right now.  Pics to follow.

Off to borrow the 259B tuner tomorrow.

Where about in VA are you? There are only 87 of us here, shoot I have a Hustler in my garage I could loan you.