Tactical Stealth Grey

I've thought about a helium balloon at night.

met some guy that told me he was some kind of muckety muck in his HOA.

He said he got sick and tired of the petty complaint and started telling people his policy was to tell the person that was being complained about WHO was doing the complaining. "Hey, Joe Blow, Karen Smith complained about your lawn. You better go and mow it."

He reported that complaints have dropped to virtually nothing.

To be fair about it, he does drive through the neighborhood several times a week and will take action for anything serious. I asked him about antennas and he surprised me because he knew what I was talking about. No towers or other obvious stuff but he said he already overlooks a couple of mysterious discreet wires.

One thing about most HOAs. The no antenna business is mainly to prevent eyesores like towers, 42 foot verticals and shit like that. A discreet word with someone on the HOA committee can get the fix put in for a discreet wire antenna in in a lot of places IF you don't have an overzealous HOA committee.

You can also play the emergency communications card.

Another trick is if someone is running for the HOA committee a quiet word in exchange for your vote will certainly help.

Then again, a lot of it boils down to you could get reported my Karen in which case all bets are off. Still, Karen can often be dealt with by reporting HER for every little thing and seeing how SHE likes it. "She put her trash cans out ten minutes early"

From everything I’ve read so far, I’m thinking about putting a j-pole for VHF/UHF and then a dipole for HF. Not sure if I should put them in the same finished attic room as my station or move them about 10 feet further into and open attic. (Would have to for the dipole) Just have to figure out how to run coax through the wall, etc. might sound silly but I’ve never done that stuff before.

I want to keep the outside clean of coax, etc.

I would not want to be within 10' of that loop on HF, see the end of this thread for safe loop distances.

I don't know anything about the Compactenna, you might want to ask its manufacturer about the safe distances, it also has a duty cycle limitation on the data sheet.

Yeah, I like the concept of the claims of getting both 20m, 2m, and 440 band, but a lot of people are calling BS on its capabilities. That why I’m thinking about sticking with the tried and true dipole and J-pole. Part of me wishes I could just hire someone who knows that they’re doing to install all this stuff, but I guess that’s not the “point” of ham radio and would not make me an “operator.” Ha.

In my recent web searches here or in general I ran across a black coated wire dipole with a black round “T split” with a nice recessed cup underneath for the coax to avoid water from reaching the connector.

Looked extra solidly made but of course I cannot find it again.  It had some nice reviews on its construction and function.  Made by a guy in England iirc, maybe not though.  Not the DX commander maker guy.

Of course I couldn’t find it here reviewing the antenna discussions.  Might have been a link twice removed.  

I don’t need to hide mine and bought an inexpensive mfj 2012 OCFD dipole.  Nothing fancy, figured its a place to start.

Im seeing dipoles and j-poles for sale on eBay. I’ll probably just pick up one there, although if I could find specific instructions on how to make them (feed point, etc) I could probably make one. I’m not the handiest person for sure.

I'd put something simple outside off of an eave and wait for a complaint before I put something inside my house. I think you'll find it to be very noisy, difficult, and not much fun. Hopefully you don't have any appliances in the attic.

I don't tempt fate with my HOA with the hopes that they don't make me reverse all the work I've done to attach an outside antenna and run cable.  From what I've read, the best I could get away with outside would be a j pole or loop attached on the current satellite mount...and that would probably not get me HF, which (IMO) would be the primary reason why someone would set up a station. Talking to local folks on repeaters sounds nice...but I would like a chance at more.   I also don't know anything about electricity or running cable so the idea of drilling holes in the outside of my house for something I'm unsure will work doesn't sound like a smart idea. Using a gutter sounds interesting but I don't want a coax coming out of the front of house (where the station would be) and attaching to a gutter. That would draw attention and not be very aesthetic.

I'm reading and watching videos were people are saying they're getting across the country and further with attic dipoles. That's good enough for me. As far as appliances, I do have an HVAC unit on the opposite end of the attic and ducting throughout. Maybe this will negate putting an antenna in the attic and I scrap this ham radio dream altogether and stop at my FT3DR.

If it sounds like I'm getting a bit overwhelmed, I am. I'd like to be reasonably sure that my setup will work to some degree before spending $ for a power source, radio, tuner, antenna, and possibly amp. I have no idea how to achieve this confidence, short of finding some kind of consultant that can stop by and provide guidance and maybe help with install. I' m going to try to make some local connections at a nearby club. Do people often spend thousands to outfit their shack, lack success making connections, and then resell everything at a loss? I want to avoid this.

You're handicapping yourself quite a bit, but it looks like you understand that.  If you insist on the HF antenna being in the attic space, a simple dipole will probably be the best bet compared to any of the other miracle small space offerings.

Out of curiosity, what is the length of a straight run you have to work with in the attic?

"Copper Cactus" J-pole

Dipole antennas
Video

MFJ has stranded copper antenna wire, insulators, baluns, etc.
They also have dipole antenna kits and ready-made dipoles.

So do DX Engineering, Ham Radio Outlet and The Wireman

Caniac_Nation,

Don't get discouraged as I believe you have many possible solutions that others have presented.  You may just have to modify them slightly.  Sometimes having an antenna system right in the open but disguised as something else works really well.  Individuals have mentioned flag poles.  The HOA pdf guide that someone posted I think is very useful.  The link above with the "Cactus Jack" reminds me of a piece of art someone used (https://nextgenerationantennas.com/restricted-housing).

While a piece of art may be too expensive, it appears you may have "landscape lighting" and "landscape design" options.  I agree with you, it would be better to have someone over with antenna experience to see the lay of the land.  As someone asked/mentioned, a Google map of your home and neighborhood would help a lot.  But I understand your hesitation in posting that here due to privacy issues.  You may want to consider providing a salesman at Ham Radio Outlet, DX Engineering, etc. pictures of your home and Google map to solicit their help.  They will keep you and your pictures confidential.

Again, don't get discouraged, keep pressing forward!!

Thank you for the encouragement. I genuinely appreciate all the ideas, even if some of them I would not be willing or able to do. It will take some time to get the right set up and hopefully I won’t make many big mistakes. I think the hobby would be fun, but there is a lot to learn for someone without the tech experience. I’ve heard the ARRL manual is good so I might start there.

Yeah, I didn’t feel comfortable posting my address/sat view of my home.

Probably varies by state.

For VA :
The red part seems to leave a lot of room for Karening though.
The 1990 census things seems a bit dated, but...

I lived in rental houses for years back in the 1990s, so I would put up a small 2m/70cm antenna in the attic and never had a problem hitting the local repeaters.

A friend of mine lives in an HOA ruled neighborhood.  Since he has a wooden privacy fence, he put up an end fed HF antenna using electrical fence standoffs on the top 2x4 of his fence.  He's worked the world on it.

OP, how about a HF vertical on a fold over mount?  Put it up at night or when you want to work HF and then lower it back down.

Do you have any trees where you can run a thin gauge wire for a dipole, end fed, or OCF dipole?  Can you put up a flag pole?

Real hams never stop learning.

I have 60 feet from end to end.

I have a 5 foot metal fence in my backyard that I could hypothetically attach a vertical antenna on and it wouldn’t draw too much attention due to trees and placement, but I don’t want a long coax going from the house all the way out to back end of my property. Yes, I know I could bury it. I also have a dog that might piss on it or mess with it and I don’t want to endanger him. Also I don’t want a “set up and take down” system that would be a hassle, IMO. My HOA allows flagpoles, but even as patriotic as I am, a flagpole would look awkward AF on my property.

If people can work the world out of their attics, as long as the noise isn’t bad, I don’t know why I couldn’t either. If that doesn’t work, I suppose my “Plan B” would be to locate an antenna on my dish mount, etc.

With that, you could squeeze a trap-dipole that gives you 20 and 40 meters usage (and 10 meters when it's open).  Depending on the size of the coil on the trap they vary in overall length but usually they're about 45-55 feet long.  Might be an option to consider over just a mono-band 20 meter dipole.

AFIK, no one is making commercial traps at present. Unadilla suspended production a couple of years ago and they are apparently having trouble getting back up.

There are plans for making traps online using RG-174U coax and PVC pipe. It shouldn't be too hard to find them. If you're an ARRL member, you can go to the Archives and pull up the December 1984 QST, pages 37-42 for plans.

True, and even the ready-made options like from MFJ or otherwise are slim right now.

But you know what they say, modern problems require modern solutions.

Attached File

Lots of plans to make traps online, making coils is not hard

Current plan is to start with a VHF/UHF radio (Icom 9700), and then add a Icom 7300 for HF later. J-pole for VHF/UHF and dipole for HF 20 and maybe 40 band, both in attic.

Questions:
1) Would you buy a power supply that could power each radio individually or both together? Seems like I wouldn’t have both powered on at the same time.

2) Do need to buy an antenna tuner for the 9700 and then a different one for the 7300? (I know that the 7300 has an internal tuner.. but I’ve heard it’s still good to buy an external.) Seems like tuners are specific to band, or is that incorrect? The seller of the j-pole says it doesn’t need to be tuned, but should I rely on that?

3) In both scenarios, I’m going about 50 feet from radios to attic antennas. Do I need LMR400 coax? (Seems like I need to minimize as much loss as possible, but maybe that’s negligible at 50 ft indoors.

Thanks!

1) Would you buy a power supply that could power each radio individually or both together? Seems like I wouldn't have both powered on at the same time.

A 25-30 amp PS will be plenty for both.  They only draw a few amps each when on and receiving, it's only when transmitting on full power do they pull ~20 amps, and since you'll not be transmitting on two radios at once very often if ever, one supply will do.


2) Do need to buy an antenna tuner for the 9700 and then a different one for the 7300? (I know that the 7300 has an internal tuner.. but I've heard it's still good to buy an external.) Seems like tuners are specific to band, or is that incorrect? The seller of the j-pole says it doesn't need to be tuned, but should I rely on that?

The 9700 will not use a tuner, we just use resonant antennas on VHF/UHF bands in amateur radio, no tuner needed there.  

For the 7300, getting an external tuner or not will depend on what antenna you use, if it requires a wide matching network to tune, then you'd need one.  From the sound of it, your plan to use a simple resonant antenna will NOT require an external tuner, if any tuner at all in most cases, but know you will be limited to only the bands your antenna is resonant on.


3) In both scenarios, I'm going about 50 feet from radios to attic antennas. Do I need LMR400 coax? (Seems like I need to minimize as much loss as possible, but maybe that's negligible at 50 ft indoors.

Use LMR400 for the VHF/UHF rig, and you could go a bit smaller on the HF rig, simple RG-8X would be plenty there for a 50-ft. run.

Thank you! @D_Man

Appreciate the quick reply! There used to be a way to give “credit” or thanks to someone on the site who provided some help. Anyone know how to do that? Thanks!

My 7300 it pretty good at matching antennas with high SWR. It will match my 80 Meter dipole cut for the bottom of the CW portion on the upper part of the SSB portion. It does even better on the higher frequency bands.
My advice would be to try it without an external tuner, then buy one if needed.

HF tuners usually work on 160 - 10, and maybe even 6, Meters.

Thanks. Is that assuming I buy a external SWR meter or are you measuring some other way without a tuner?

The 7300 has an onboard SWR meter as well as a very basic SWR sweep graph.  I wouldn't use it for something like building an antenna, but it's fine for checking your current setup's SWR with or without the internal tuner engaged.

The 7300 has an integral SWR plotter.


An external meter is always nice, though. It lets you keep track of what's going on ahead of the internal tuner.
Those big fancy ones are cool looking, but something like the MFJ-860 series will do the job. After all, the primary purpose is to get the reflected power as low as possible.


If you want to get even more basic, buy the model 816. It takes a little more effort to use, but it gets the job done.

when it says the Jpole doesn't need to be tuned, it means they tuned / adjusted it at the factory. If you buy a hamstick, you have to tune it by loosening the whip with a hex wrench and moving the whip in or out of the rest of the antenna to shorten or lengthen it. With the Jpole that says you don't need to tune it, they mean you don't need to adjust the length because they did it at the factory.

How far away are the repeaters that you can hit line of sight. If they are far and you can get the antenna high enough to hit them with no dirt in between then it might be worth the money for the LMR400. If they are all within 30-40 miles and then a mountain, having LMR400 will not help much as the elimination of 3-4 db of signal won't matter much.

So it depends on your terrain and repeaters.

Caniac_Nation,

You are getting various answers to your questions.  When it comes to coax, this coax loss calculator (https://kv5r.com/ham-radio/coax-loss-calculator/) will help you measure the various losses based upon various coax.  You write that you will need about 50' of coax.  So, not knowing if you calculated for any bends, etc., does that mean you really need less than 50' or could it mean you might actually need more than 50' when all is said and done?  Many people buy LMR600 type of coax for VHF/UHF depending upon the length of a coax run.  While it may not be an issue for you at 50', I know of individuals using it starting at 75'.....

As for the external SWR meter question, if you intend to buy one and since you have already established you will be starting out with the IC-9700 and later possibly adding the IC-7300, then consider the MFJ-894 (https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-011570) which handles the HF through UHF frequencies.  It costs a little more......  You could buy the MFJ-884 (https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-011956) which is $15 less than the MFJ-894.

I see you are considering an indoor HF antenna for the IC7300. HF antennas will have very high voltage at the ends of the antenna, even at 100 watts, you will want the ends well insulated and away from people, walls etc. I still like the idea of a loop around the periphery of the roof and you will almost assuredly be able to run some lower frequencies.  hth
73,
Rob

I'm buying the 9700 first though.  The 7300 probably won't come for a while

Looking at this one. Does that still apply?

http://www.arrowantennas.com/osj/j-pole.html

Probably 15-20? miles. I can hear them clearly with my handheld but they can't hear me.

I measured today and estimate about 35 feet so I'm rounding up to 50' to account for some extra loops at the radio. I don't see needing more than 50' but if I do, it wouldn't be more than 60' without a doubt.I was just going to buy 150' for both antennas and the just cut and crimp connectors on the ends.

Thanks. Was going to suspend the antenna with something like fishing line on center feed point and the ends of the wires tied to beams. Nothing touching wood.

I don't see where that says it doesn't need to be tuned. I expect it would not, but i don't see that stated.

Are you transmitting with the HT inside the house? If you go outside, they will probably hear you better or maybe up into the finished attic space for height.

I suspect that ANY external antenna is going to work much better than the HT antenna.

Instead of spending money on LMR-400 to use with an HT it would probably be much better to get a 50 watt radio instead and then put up an antenna in your attic with a short run of RG-8x. That is what I would do.

Arrow Antennas are good stuff, with a good rep and no, no tuning there. I'd recommend something in vertical with a ground plane; though, the pattern is better.
73,
Rob
ETA Also from Arrow Antennas 1/4 wave ground plane for 2M / 70cm. It looks like the 70cm element operates as a J-Pole.
A step up would be a Larson 2m/ 70cm mobile antenna Larsen NMO 2/70B on a ground plane adapter for mast mounting. NMO to base antenna mount. needs a mast of course. I have never dealt with "Antenna Farm" but they have a good selection. I picked the Larsen antenna as it is commercial grade, there many other choices available.

With the HT, I am outside. I shouldn’t be hooking the HT up to the attic antenna since I’ll have the Icom 100w.

The LMR-400 is for use with the station Icom 9700, not the HT.

Newbie question: If I have one coax coming from a 146/440 Dual band j-pole but the radio shows two separate antenna inputs, do I need a duplexer or will a single input work?

In the case of the 9700, it looks like the antenna outputs are isolated for each band, so yes if using it as a simple FM dual band base for repeaters and such, you'd need a diplexer to combine them to a single, dual-band antenna.  Or, go low-tech and just remember to move the coax cable between the two ports depending on what band you are currently using.

The 9700 was made more so for weak-signal and satellite work, thus the isolated inputs for better receiver isolation.  Unlike a simple dual band FM-only radio where there is a single shared antenna port.

Thank you!

So the question of grounding for RF has come up for this 2nd story ham shack. For AC, since the outlet is 3-prong, the radio connected to the power supply with a 3 prong plug should fix that issue (I think). I'm not worried about lightning, because I'll just unplug the power supply and radio when I'm not using the radio. Do I really need a bus bar for grounding components and rfi? Or do I try the station without grounding and only worry about grounding if I have issues? I can't drape an unsightly ground wire from the window out the front of my house. I'm not seeing a good option at all for an earth ground.

Wish I had some insurance this would all work decently. Second guessing whether I should take this plunge.

I must have missed something.  How are you connecting your coax and where will that be running?  Out the front window?  Is there a reason why a ground wire could not follow the same path as the coax path to the outside?

The radios don't draw much current when you're not transmitting. Something like a 30A could power two radios, just remember not to transmit from both at the same time.

IMO the radio doesn't need an equipment ground because it has no AC, only 13.8 v DC on the radio. The power supply does have a 3rd prong equipment ground because it does have 120V AC.  The AC 3rd prong is simply there to blow a fuse should the hot AC wire come in connect with the case so you don't get an electric shock. Grounding the ground wire on the radio to the ground wire on the power supply will equalize both cases to ground and is commonly done but not for AC ground, for RF ground.

Lots of people have their shacks on the second or third floors. It will work just fine.

IMO you can treat it just like a portable station. Nobody goes to the local park to play radio and sets up an RF ground buss and starts sinking ground rods next to the picnic table  and yet, somehow,  portable works very well. I ran my shack like that for about 2 years.

When I added an amp is when I added RF grounding.

There are 3 ways to have RFI in the shack with coax.

1. The antenna is too close to the shack and the RF is naturally coming off the antenna and into your shack. Solution is to move either the shack or the antenna further away or reduce transmit power.

2. RFI / RF in the shack is the result of an unbalanced to balanced junction or high mismatch / SWR Antenna and RF is reflecting at the coax and antenna junction back to the outside of the coax shield and coming into the shack radiating off the outside of the coax shield. Solution is to have a resonant antenna / better counterpoise ( to reduce RF reflection ) or an effective choke ( balun ) to turn the RF on the outside of the coax shield to heat before it gets back to the shack.

3. You are tuning a non-resonant antenna that has high SWR to make the transmitter see a matched impedance using a tuner and you don't have an RF ground so the case of the tuner is not grounded ( nor the transmitter case since they are connected via the shield of the coax ) and because of the big mismatch you are generating large RF voltages in the tuner and the case of the tuner which is connected to the coax shield is radiating into the shack ( or being conducted on cables to your computer or video monitors )  ( you can also get RF burns from it ) and there is no RF ground to send the voltage to ground or the RF ground is high impedance because the ground is not really an RF ground due to the wire being too small or too long ( ie on the second floor ). One solution is to move the tuner to the base of the antenna. Non-resonant verticals like the 43 foot vertical have auto tuners at the base of the antenna. Another solution is to install a low impedance RF ground ( big short wire / strap to a ground rod ) or when not possible,  'tune' the RF ground with a ground / counterpoise tuner to turn the high impedance RF ground wire  into a tuned low impedance RF ground allowing the RF current to flow to ground and the high RF voltage on the cases to go to ground. Just like you can make a transmitter happy by impedance matching for an antenna ( and the antenna and coax will still have a high SWR and associated losses on the outbound side of the tuner ) the ground wire will only be lower voltage between the tuner / transmitter and the ground tuner. On the ground side of the ground tuner, you will have the same problem but if done correctly some of the current will be turned to heat in the ground tuner and the rest of it will be off the cases and closer to the ground rod ideally almost out of the shack. The shorter the part of the RF ground wire that radiates is, the less it will radiate. MFJ makes such a ground tuner that can handle up to 300 watts.[[

I hope that helps explain what is going on. That is the way I understand it.

It gets confusing especially why and how RF gets to be on the outside of the coax. The simple answer is that at every junction where the coax becomes just a pair of wires if the impedance isn't a perfect match either because of different impedances from coax to antenna or because it goes from an unbalanced transmission line ( coax, remember the coax shield is grounded, the inner conductor is not ) to an antenna like a dipole where neither side is grounded ( ie. balanced ) that junction is no longer an inner conductor and a shield around the inner conductor.  The RF travels on the surface ( because like charges repel ) so when it starts out on the inner of the shield it stays there until it doesn't have an inner anymore like when the shield is connected to a wire antenna. At that point the RF travels on the outside of the wire. If at the junction ( or at the end of the wire antenna because it isn't a resonant antenna and there is no standing wave) it gets reflected ( which it will for the reasons stated above ) the RF always stays on the outside of what ever it is on and when it is reflected to back to coax it stays on the outside ( because like charges repel ) and the outside on a coax is the outside of the shield.