First radio and antenna question

Joined
Jun 5, 2010
Messages
16,013
Likes
4,527
Feedback: 1 / 0 / 0
As many know, I'm still waiting on my call sign to go live, but I've been pondering what base station I should get.

I'm not yet interested in anything above 6m at this point. I just want to play around with local repeaters and get used to 'hamming it up'. [grin]

The problem I have is that I'm not very handy with all things mechanical...so installing my own antenna is going to be a challenge.

I live in a rural area and have a 2 story colonial. Ideally, I'd love to have an antenna or 3 on the roof, but I don't have a ladder tall enough to reach the roof and even if I did, I'd be scared shitless going up there. I am not good with heights.

So, I was wondering if anyone has a suggestion for a good tall crank-up type tower that I can secure in my yard or on my back deck.

I've got an idea for radios and still looking at my options. I need more help with the antenna setup.

Thanks
 
I built a ground plane antenna out of a SO-239 connector and some house wire. It was more for the fun of making it than to have something to install outside. I screwed the connector to a PVC cap, put that on a short length of PVC pipe, ran the coax down the pipe and out the bottom to my radio and clamped the pipe to a chair in my dining room/shack. It works great; I just have to be careful not to poke out an eye on the ground radials [wink].

I'm also in the midst of another antenna project that I got from KG0ZZ. It's the one I plan on installing outside once I get it together. It's a pretty simple idea and fairly cheap to make.

If you have an antenna analyzer (or a friend who has one) you can really dial in the lengths to get the SWR as low as possible. I don't so I just measured super carefully and hoped for the best. The ground plane works great and I expect the KG0ZZ design to be equally good. My local repeater is almost visible from my house, so I can get away with a less-than-perfect antenna.

Note: When soldering to SO239 connectors, use the highest power soldering gun you can get your hands on. You want to heat it up quickly, make the connection and be done. There's an insulator inside the connector that will start to melt/deform if you heat it too much. Better connectors use teflon insulators which hold up better to heat.
 
I have antennas in my attic and they work well no issues

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk
 
There's no need for a tower unless you are one of those "go big or go home" types. I have a 2M/70cm J-pole in my attic. It works great. Sure, an antenna mounted outside and higher up would work better, but I can hit tons of repeaters with what I have, and I don't worry about lightning strikes, wind or ice storms.

Once you get your General, simple wire antennas work great, are cheap and are stealthy. One of the best uses of our New England trees. A bow or sling shot and you are good to go.
 
There's no need for a tower unless you are one of those "go big or go home" types. I have a 2M/70cm J-pole in my attic. It works great. Sure, an antenna mounted outside and higher up would work better, but I can hit tons of repeaters with what I have, and I don't worry about lightning strikes, wind or ice storms.

Once you get your General, simple wire antennas work great, are cheap and are stealthy. One of the best uses of our New England trees. A bow or sling shot and you are good to go.

Can you give me some specifics on the attic setup? Do you just mount the j-pole to the gable end wall on the inside of the attic or do you hang the j-pole from the ridge beam and then run the coax down to the radio?

Pictures would be so helpful, if you don't mind.

Thanks in advance and the idea.
 
I have this antenna in the attic. It's sort of a kit because you need a piece of schedule-200 PVC pipe to put it in. (note: sch-200 can be hard to find). I have cross-braces in the attic about shoulder-high, so I clamped the bottom to a cross brace so the top of the antenna is near the roof line. Then I ran LMR-400 down to the shack. Don't use RG58 if it's going to take more than about 50' because of the losses at VHF and UHF frequencies. [at 440MHz, RG58 = 11dB/100' vs. LMR400=2.5dB/100']

Just as effective would be a roll-up J-pole (slim jim) like this one. Just hang it from the highest point in the attic.

If money isn't too much of a concern, the Cushcraft Ringo Ranger antennas are reputed to be about the best.

Position the antenna so you don't have metal ducting or a chimney between the antenna and your favorite far-away repeater. Obstacles won't matter for the close repeaters.

Try it before you run the cable all the way down to the shack. If you don't like the performance you can always move the antenna outside and up higher.
 
Last edited:
I have this antenna in the attic. It's sort of a kit because you need a piece of schedule-200 PVC pipe to put it in. (note: sch-200 can be hard to find). I have cross-braces in the attic about shoulder-high, so I clamped the bottom to a cross brace so the top of the antenna is near the roof line. Then I ran LMR-400 down to the shack. Don't use RG58 if it's going to take more than about 50' because of the losses at VHF and UHF frequencies. [at 440MHz, RG58 = 11dB/100' vs. LMR400=2.5dB/100']

Just as effective would be a roll-up J-pole (slim jim) like this one. Just hang it from the highest point in the attic.

If money isn't too much of a concern, the Cushcraft Ringo Ranger antennas are reputed to be about the best.

Position the antenna so you don't have metal ducting or a chimney between the antenna and your favorite far-away repeater. Obstacles won't matter for the close repeaters.

Try it before you run the cable all the way down to the shack. If you don't like the performance you can always move the antenna outside and up higher.

Thank you for this info. I definitely like the 2m/70cm dual band antennas.
 
Rare, or well done?

I built a ground plane antenna out of a SO-239 connector and some house wire. ... I screwed the connector to a PVC cap, put that on a short length of PVC pipe, ... and clamped the pipe to a chair in my dining room/shack. It works great; I just have to be careful not to poke out an eye on the ground radials [wink]. ...

Either keep that antenna a few yards away from your operating position...

TABLE 8. VHF 1/4 wave plane or mobile whip antenna at 146 MHz
(estimated gain 1 dBi) assuming surface (ground) reflection

Transmitter power
(watts)
Distance (m) to comply
with occupational/
controlled exposure limit
Distance (m) to comply
with gen. population/
uncontrolled exposure
limit
100.51.1
501.12.5
15024.4
Or get one of these implanted at your local tattoo/piercing shop

pop-up-turkey-timer1.gif


so you know when you can stop transmitting.
 
i know you said you're not really interested in HF, yet. But you don't need to have a tower, amp, and big yagi to make HF contacts. I've got one these, http://www.k1jek.com/, strung up between 2 trees in my back yard held up my some 550 cord. is a perfect solution, nope, but I get on the air and I've had QSOs with Europe, Asia, & North America and South America using 100W on SSB.
 
Damn, thanks for the ideas. I'll bookmark them for when I'm ready to roll onto the higher bands.

Buddy of mine is moving to the UK next year and joked that we could ham it up. That is a motivation for me to get my general, I suppose.

What bands work best for hitting western Europe? Would I have to wait til the sun goes down in both places before I can hit him or would 6 or 10 be sufficient?
 
What works for western Europe mostly depends on old Sol. If there is any skip, 20 or 15 during the day and 40 or 20 at night usually work. My sloping end-fed antenna seems to favor having its skips land in western Europe. Wire antennas are great but a bit of a crap shoot compared to a yagi on a rotator.
 
There's no need for a tower unless you are one of those "go big or go home" types. I have a 2M/70cm J-pole in my attic. It works great. Sure, an antenna mounted outside and higher up would work better, but I can hit tons of repeaters with what I have, and I don't worry about lightning strikes, wind or ice storms.

Once you get your General, simple wire antennas work great, are cheap and are stealthy. One of the best uses of our New England trees. A bow or sling shot and you are good to go.

THIS! I have a j-pole in the attic and I hit repeaters 50 miles away. I have to dial down the power to talk to the local repeater (only 2 miles away)

This is the antenna I use http://www.ebay.com/itm/J-Pole-Base...-Duty-amateur-ham-radio-scanner-/121060052442

works great!
 
Last edited:
cockpitbob I also use a sloping end-fed wire. Tell me about yours.
It's basically a home brew version of the LNR Precision EndFedz End Fed Half Wave (EFHW). It's resonant on 40/20/15/10 (SWR is getting a little high on 10). New on the EFHW scene are MyAntennas.com with this 80/40/20/15/10. I would love to figure out how they get such a wide range of frequencies through the coupler's transformer.
 
Thanks Bob I don't want to hijack this, however I will describe my antenna and this may help with the original question in the post.
72foot 12ga. stranded copper wire, up at 50 feet on the high end and 15 feet at the low end. The low end is connected to a 9:1 matching transformer ( 200t50 toroid wrapped with 3 turns x 9 14 ga. magnetic wire). 63 feet of LMR 400 connected to the matching transformer and the ground side of the transformer is connected to ground through a 4 foot electrical grounding rod. It is necessary to use at lease 50 feet of coax because it is the counterpoise for the wire. The 63 feet of LMR400 is under ground to my house and connected to a 1:1 rf isolater. and then into the house through 5 feet of LMR400 flex. It is necessary to use a rf isolater when using an end fed wire antenna because they are notorious for rf walking along the coax and into the shack. This antenna has been a great working antenna for me and also it is hidden in the woods in my back yard, no one knows there is an antenna. I have made contacts and QSO's through out the world with this antenna with only 100 watts. It has been a very effective antenna. Yes it has to be tuned using an antenna tuner, however I can tune it from 160 to 6 meters and have made contact on all bands.
If anyone has any questions please contact me.
 
Back
Top Bottom