Once, a long long time ago, I managed to attract a lightning bolt with a poorly installed CB antenna.  

Ever since then, I have been reluctant to set up any kind of permanent antenna at my location.  We don't get many storms throughout the year where I live now, but when we do, they are serious business.  We had a strike right in the yard about 50 feet from the back porch last summer and it took out my wife's computer and our cordless phone base.  I had unplugged my computer when I first heard thunder.  We had several televisions and kitchen appliances that survived unscathed, and so did the internet router.

I have used mostly portable antennas off and on, and I usually get frustrated with their poor performance, and radiation patterns that favor N/S instead of E/W due to location considerations.  I live up against some tall cliffs that might be blocking signals to the east somewhat.

Anyhow, in the interest of avoiding the trouble and expense of setting up a proper lightning protection ground, I've been using crappy compromise antennas that all for one reason or another just don't work well.

I don't have tall trees, so when Ive used wire antennas they are only about 6 to 8 feet above ground.  I don't want to put up a permanent mast or tower because again, lightning.  I don't want to spend thousands on wire, cadweld and ground rods to run a perimeter around the house.

I've used a magnetic loop antenna and it works great for 20 meters and up, if you don't care about tuning around the band.  But I do care and I don't like retuning a lot.

I had a setup several years ago where I installed a mobile multi band whip on a chain link fence.  It worked pretty good for what it was, but again was pretty high Q in that installation.

I tried a Super Antenna MP1 which works well also, but is another higher Q antenna that requires manual retuning.  I think of all the antennas I tried, this one had the highest gain and best radiation pattern.  

Anyhow I tried building a bracket today that will allow me to connect a base loaded mobile whip with a flylead for band changes, an Opek 600.  It's got an oddball arrangement where it mounts to an SO-239 connector, so I used a bulkhead fitting in a piece of 1/4 inch aluminum bar, and also tapped and threaded for a counterpoise wire terminal and a 1/4"-20 hole for use with a camera tripod.

I just want to see if my latest poor performing compromise antenna will be at least as good as the super antenna.  And I've decided that I probably really only need an antenna for 40 and 80 meters since the only time I'll get to play around will be in the evenings.

I'll try to get some pics of it set up out back on a tripod maybe over the weekend.

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Interesting. Ran the Opek 400 mobile for a couple of years...with a whole lot of sheet metal under it though, mounted on a mag mount. I was impressed with the results to say the least.

How about a modest pole or mast of some variety and put a static dissipater on top?



I live near an area that gets massive lightning storms during the summer and all the oil field structures and rigs have these dissipaters on top.

@Jambalaya

Yes, you are one sick, sick individual. Clearly in need of an intervention!

Your fear of lightning is ungrounded (ha, a pun! )

You don't need to put in a super-awesome lightning protection system. Simply unplug the coaxial cable from any antenna you might have where it goes into the house and put the end in a glass jar or bottle when you are not using it. Or screw it into a mating connector that shorts it to a ground rod.

On space constrained lots, or lots with no towers, poles or trees, the answer is always, always, a vertical antenna of some sort. This need not break the bank. A Hustler 6BTV is < $250 at DX Engineering. I suspect you've spent well over that fooling with your tiny little antennas. Worse, you've wasted your time and suffered poor performance for it, as well.

Something like a 6BTV will put all your little antennas to shame with probably less effort than you put into the little antennas. And to further feed your fear of lightning, it can easily be mounted on a tilt-up base. So not only can you simply disconnect the coaxial cable, you can tilt the entire antenna over an lay it on the ground during storms.

Yea brother! You are healed!

I've looked at those Hustler antennas.  The only thing really holding me back is the need for radials and a longer coax run.

Prior to the inflation issue, I had plans to build a "tiny home" on a spot about 60 feet away from the house and do a proper grounding system and small tower.  It was going to be solar powered and completely isolated from the homes electrical system.  Basically a separate shack building.

10 years ago I could have built the whole thing for like $4k.

I don't mind disconnecting my cables inside when not operating, but having to do anything outside would be a pain.

This is what I do.  When we moved to Nashville years ago I went from an 80' tower and beam to a vertical.  I miss the gain of the beam but it's nice just to be able to run outside and disconnect my coax before a storm.  Mine isn't on a tilt base but it is mounted in a piece of PVC conduit so I can just lift it up and drop it on the ground if the upcoming storms are major.

The radial thing is not that big of a deal. Just commit to putting down 4 a day, i.e. don't make it your life's work. In a week you'll have plenty.

As for where you disconnect the coax, disconnecting inside is something a lot of folks do. When I first moved to my current QTH I was faster at putting up antennas than putting down grounds and lightning protection. I'd just disconnect the coax from the station and put the end in a glass bottle.

One other thing you should look at, separate and apart from your ham radio stuff, and that is a whole-house surge protector. I recommend this one:

https://www.leviton.com/en/products/51120-1

Stop that shit right at your main panel!

How was it poorly installed? Not grounded?

Your base-loaded mobile whip plan will also require radials...

I'm just going to use a single counterpoise wire.

Not grounded, in a tree, cable run through a door jamb.

The tips of the spikes are constantly discharging into the surrounding air (even during clear weather). So, you hear constant static crashes on any nearby receiver antenna.

It's more of a problem at HF frequencies than at VHF or UHF.

One work-around would be to temporarily un-ground the dissipater when you're actually using your ham gear.

My situation is pretty much the same as yours, but with plenty of trees. Naturally, none of which are situated for a proper antenna installation.

I contacted an electrical contractor to install utility poles in my back yard with the top ~35' AGL. While he was installing it, I had him add a length of heavy gauge wire from the top down to the bottom with a length of it coiled into a spiral and stapled to the bottom of the pole, the same as our utility company does with their poles. In fact, our utility company put me in contact with the contractor. The contractor also put a screw eye and sheave at the top of the pole with an endless loop of nylon line through it to the bottom to make it easy to raise and lower the antenna. From the poles, I hung an 80-15 Meter trap/fan dipole. The coax drops down the center pole and is terminated with a PL-259. Another length of coax is kept on a reel beside the house and unrolled whenever I want to operate. It stays coiled up in the summer and is left connected in the winter.

Only one pole is required if an Inverted Vee configuration is used.

I do about half of my operating <5 Watts CW and with good propagation work some DX. At other times I run 50 Watts CW.

I don't know how that would work in your location, but I've been satisfied with mine for over 35 years.

Just so you know, during the summer when the sun never sets over the northern part of the globe 20 meters and higher can be active all night as the D layer gets sunlight 24 hrs per day.

Making 20 meter and higher contact across the North Pole to the other side of the world is a thing.

Using an antenna with a low takeoff angle works best as that low takeoff angle gets your signal to the sunlight. Depending on how far south you live.

Wow, that's some epic thread drift. Vertical antennas, like a 6BTV, have a low takeoff angle...

Not really.

He specifically said he only needed 40 and 80 because most of his time on the air will be at night.

Verticals can have a low takeoff angle(s), depends on ground status and radials and how long they are

Anecdotal support of this.

I am using a Hustler BTV5.  Mostly because I got sick of dodging my coax hanging over the lawn while mowing that ran to my MFJ 2012 OCFD dipole which was a solid performing antenna.  I dug a shallow trench (bedrock so no deeper) dropped in recycled pvc conduit, a 140’ length of LMR 400 flex iirc.  I used the DX Engineering tilt over base.  I started out with 8 33’ radials but added more from wire I salvaged that ran to a torn down pool that was formerly near where I installed the antenna.  I put in a 4’ steel post to mount the tip down mount to.   The conduit is not needed but I had most of it and my neighbor had. stock of old stuff just weathering in the sun to add to it.  I bought a couple sticks to finish the run.  By using conduit when I move I can yank my expensive coax where with direct bury I would abandon it.


On that Hustler I made conntacts in Europe, south America, East Asia with just a hundred watts.  I have since inserted a Tuner and an amplifier as my whole set up I kept legal limit capability in mind once I decided to switch from the OCFD that was hanging rather low in my younger small trees on top of my hill.   I can upgrade to 1500 watts should I choose to do so.  (500-600 watts seems like the sweet spot for dollars spent)

The Hustler BTV series isn’t the best but it is quite good, reasonably priced and can be a simple install.  A Mosley beam on a rotator on top of a 75 foot tower would be nice but It’s not in the cards here.

Oh I was able to step in for Gyprat and run the Tuesday night net a week ago from that Hustler.  With good atmospheric conditions I was able to get the job done.  I am sure I was weaker than Gyprat but it got the job done.  


So a vertical will work, radials aren’t that hard and can be done with junk wire as long as it isn’t green inside.   A little caulk on the ends should buy them some time.  



Edit, the hustler is just a fair narrow 75 or 80 m antenna.   It’s a stub and loading coil on the top.  The wire whip stub you cut and tune like some auto antennas.  (you can have more than one cut and swap them to go from the 75 m CW side up to the top end of 80, tilt down, allen wrench two set screws and swap, or use a tuner)


Since the band conditions improved with my amp I had some legs to get contacts in Australia, Japan, western Russia, Austral Islands and pretty much all of South America.   Not all of those needed the amp either.

With the suspot cycle picking up, 20 Meters will become more and more active during the dark hours. So will 15, and the 40 meter element of his antenna may be loadable there.
FWIW, my 40 Meter dipole loads well on 15 and just the other day I worked Italy with it -- while running 5 Watts CW.

How's this for a compromise antenna?
LINK 1
LINK 2

FWIW, back during the peak of Cycle 21 (~1980) I was living in a 2nd floor apartment in Port Arthur, TX running a Heathkit HW-8 into a 15 meter dipole tacked to the ceiling. I worked stations throughout the US, Canada, and the Caribbean.

Lots of ideas in this manual.
https://www.sgcworld.com/Publications/Manuals/stealthman.pdf

It's from an antenna tuner mfg, so it involves the use of a tuner.

My dad had a telephone pole installed at his parents house in the 60's.  He used a second metal pole on a hinge at the top so he could lower it to work on the antennas then lever it back up into place.  It's a solid, sturdy, inexpensive way to get some height.  

I think for my area I would just get a push up pole and drive some T posts for guy anchors.

Just far enough south to never see auroras.  A few hundred miles north they get them sometimes.

harbor Freight carries 2 different sized screw in the ground guy anchors.

Got a link?

Just messing with the mobile antenna today.  It has a steel whip that was too long even fully collapsed inside the middle section.  I used a bit of wire instead of trimming the steel whip.

It really doesn't like to resonate on the bands the coil taps are set up for, but it's also designed as a mobile antenna to be used in the center of a car roof.  It's not as sharp a dip as the mag loop antenna I have, but it's still pretty narrow-banded.  This is using one 32 foot counterpoise, and a 25 foot cable (which the shield would act as a counterpoise as well).

Results were "meh" on 20 meters.  I will see how 40 does as it gets later.  Compared to the EARCHI antenna, this one is not as good so far.

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I use these:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BLGB6NS/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_9Y9RAEB23YJDMQ5PR8FZ?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

They come in 8, 10, and 16 inch lengths

This is why a screwdriver antenna with full access to however much or how little coil you need is better, or a manually selected coil too. You can add as much wire as you need up to near quarter wave and the antenna is still capacitive and will need very little coil for increased efficiency. For example around 15 feet for 20 meters and around 31-32 feet for 40 meter of wire can be added, then the coil adjusted for very little turns. If you go over the 1/4 wavelength, then the antenna becomes inductive and you would need to add capacitance which you don't readily have to resonate it.

I often add 24 foot of wire to my mobile antenna for much greater gain on bands below 20 meters, but I have a very small plastic insulator and a set of push on automotive connectors in the wire at the 15 foot length to use it on 20 meters as well. On 80 meters I have measure as much as 18 dB of gain over the stock 32 inch whip of a little tarheel II antenna. Of course the 24 foot "whip" suspended by my telescoping fishing pole can only be used while stationary, but it can really get you into your states 75 meter phone net with a real signal instead of the approximately 2% efficiency of a coil and short whip.

The usual comment is "your the loudest mobile signal I have ever heard" or something like that. Of course you are more portable than mobile.  Of course if you could attach 60 foot of wire up a tree, you would have an even better signal. But the key is you have the screwdriver antenna portion itself to act as a tuner to tune the extra wire to resonance as long as it is kept slightly short of a 1/4 wave.  But with fixed taps you don't have that ability.

Yep, that's the issue with the taps.  I do have the super antenna coil which slides (manually) to tune.  I cheat and tune it for the middle of the end of the band I want to use, so either digital or SSB, and then use a little travel tuner if I am using the FT-817ND or the internal tuner if using the FT-450D.  

I do get a lot of noise, but it's been a while since I had an HF antenna up and there are probably new noise sources now.  Plus the FT-817 doesn't have any filters in it, and Collins quit making them so they are hard to find.  A tiny board with 4 or 5 components shouldn't cost 1/4 of what you paid for the whole radio.

Speaking of compromised antennas…. My truck is in the shop and I’m in a rental.  I stuck a mag mount Wilson 2000 CB antenna on the roof, hooked up my KX2 and am mobile QRP now.  It will tune 40 and up.  

I also REALLY like my AX1.  Used it with the KX2 inside a hotel room in Indy and worked Florida on 20m.  Used a MFJ whip on the radio to work GA from Vermont in another hotel room.

I have a piece of property in north Georgia where I own a ridgeline at about 1800 ft asl.
On that ridgeline, I have a 5BTV with every possible radial recommended.
That point is about 800 ft from my cabin on said property.
I have a run of flooded 75Ohm coax from feed point to the transceiver.
A very good friend who is older than me and 'did radio things when radio things were hard' stayed up one night feeding the woodstove and playing SWL on that feed to the 590SG.  When I got up to feed the stove at one point he stopped me and said "This is like the ear of God.  It's everything I can do using the filters to discriminate stations.  How do you call from here?"
Compromises...indeed.

Sounds like a great problem to have.

In that instance I'd use an SDR paired with a good computer program like HDSDR with a waterfall display and the user defined audio filters.  You can pick out signals, click to tune, and then adjust the filter skirts to eliminate anything you don't want to hear.

Also you can turn the gain down so you only hear stronger signals.

The 'problem' is, when you call anyone, you get just off freq stations answering.
I tried to work field day at the antenna on an 857D one year and had to give up working HF and switch to VHF/UHF because I couldn't find a frequency where there weren't overlapping stations.
I did end up like 4th that year on VHF/UHF I think...and I didn't even try that hard.

What I really REALLY want to do is put multiple band-specific moxons up there on a pole I can run them up on.  Reducing skip lobes to a minimum and buys me a great f/b ratio.

I had a similar experience using an FT857 at a camp site in Rocky Mountain National Park. Ear of God is a great description.