Posted: 3/12/2015 5:13:43 PM EDT
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I'm thinking, and that's a bad precedent to begin with, that I need a low-profile receiving antenna. The gutters on the house are metal, the K-Guard variety.
My thought was to make a loop antenna out of them by connecting the ends together and then feeding the opposite end. Any merit in my scheme? |
| Well, I've got an extended Zepp up already and it terminates in the basement. With the Icom receiver on the computer table, which is upstairs, I thought I'd run a line up to the attic, out the eave vent, and finally to the gutters. The idea is to have it in the style of a loop. |
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Yup, I have done it.
Downspouts make for weird radiation patterns, but it works. A buddy of mine has been running that in a very restricted HOA environment for at least 5 years now. We soldered every joint on the gutters, including ends, to make sure no weird stuff happened with interactions with corrosion, ran wire on the sides with no gutters under the eaves, and hooked into an SGC tuner in the attic. |
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I have worked a guy dozens of times over the years that lives in Montana and he uses his gutters for his HF antenna.
The other SKCC guys probably know and have worked Jim. He is very active on the air. The hell with radiation patterns. You hook it up and work what you can. It doesn't have to be pretty or something out of a text book. |
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Which Icom receiver? I had an R75 several years before becoming a ham. For a while I had it rigged with
an IC-718 such that the 718 served as TX only, and switched to the R75 for RX. The R75 was really a better receiver being triple conversion vs. the 718's dual conversion. I used an MFJ-1708 relay to switch between the two units. They stacked neatly, looked like they went together. In receive, RX was present in the corner of the R75's LCD screen. In transmit, the RX disappeared, and TX appeared in the corner of the 718's LCD screen. Also, in TX it would disconnect the antenna from the receiver, switch it to the 718, and at the same time it would short the R75's antenna terminal to ground and mute the output so that it would not feedback with the transmitter. Very neat setup. But the bottom line, it was a superior receiver and very easy to A/B the R75 with the 718's receiver by simply pulling the 12v power plug from the MFJ-1708. It would default to the transmit configuration, putting the antenna on the 718 to load the transmitter, and grounding the R75's antenna, protecting it also in case of relay failure. I once again have an R75 and it is sitting on the shelf just above the computer where I am typing now. |
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Yep, just to receive. I suppose I could try to xmit but I don't see that as being soon. I think I remember someone hooking a set of bed-springs to a tuner and loading those up! HA! Run what ya' brung, huh?
It is an R75! I like it but I know it can do better with a better antenna. I'll have to look up the 718 as it's not a familiar model number to me. I think I'll give the gutters a shot as it has to be better than the piece of wire strung around the perimeter of the room here. |