Posted: 6/30/2017 8:07:32 AM EDT
| I have recently have had over 200 feet of 4 inch seamless aluminum gutters installed on my home. Have read some threads about using them as a antenna. Mine are only about 7 feet from the ground. What has been your experience with this kind of application? This is only a part time hobby so I will accept the results I get. I plan on making some jumper wires for all the corners because I do not trust the the two little screws to make a good connection. It will be a full loop which I believe will be some bonus. |
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Something so low is not often all that useful on HF, especially for the lower bands - unless it's all one can do. There's too much ground coupling loss, especially with horizontally polarized radiation.
It's better to go taller/higher, and moving the system away from electrically noisy house  - But if that's all one can go with, then there are likely better uses of the materials at hand - such as using a portion of the conductive material as a T-Top loaded vertical driven against a radial field. Coil loading and/or using that tuner for frequency diversity is also in the mix.
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Quoted:
Something so low is not often all that useful on HF, especially for the lower bands - unless it's all one can do. There's too much ground coupling loss, especially with horizontally polarized radiation. It's better to go taller/higher, and moving the system away from electrically noisy house - But if that's all one can go with, then there are likely better uses of the materials at hand - such as using a portion of the conductive material as a T-Top loaded vertical driven against a radial field. Coil loading and/or using that tuner for frequency diversity is also in the mix.It's better than no antenna at all. If this is the only thing you can do, then go ahead and try. This will be a very inefficient antenna. You will also pick up a lot of noise and most likely induce a lot of RF into home appliances that can lead to all kinds of weird issues. A thin long wire hung from the top of your house to a nearby tree(s) will be a better choice. Look at building an End-Fed dipole and use a thin gauge copped clad insulated wire from The Wireman. Can you install a ground mounted vertical at your place. Something like a "Butternut" multi-band vertical with a dozen (or at least 3-4) radials on the ground. You'll be surprised how well it works for it's size. |