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Apartment / townhome / stealth antenna?

M

mr_fx

Sr. Member
Oct 8, 2011
1,536
172
173
Kansas City
It seems the wife want to move... worse yet she wants to move to an apartment, with a pool, and a hot tub, and a dog park and a play ground and a blah blah blah... OH GOD IT MAKES ME SICK...

I have considered the 'Rain Gutter' antenna but I have heard that could be a NO NO without laying down some buried ground radials...

I have considered a crawlspace / attic multi folded design

I have considered a folded antenna on the ceiling or even the walls


I guess they would basically be like folded dipoles or folded loops

maybe using the 'vent pipe' as an antenna?

or getting a special allowance (in writing) from the apartment management to allow a dipole on the roof that is held down by a several cinder blocks, that way there would be no holes when I left. The biggest issue with this idea is that if there was any interference with other apartment dwellers then they would know that I was the culprit

I might even consider linking up to the fence and just tuning that up...
 

Funny you would ask that. I have only had the damn thing 2 years and finally set it up 10' off the ground on Wednesday and tuned it to get it resonant on 27.205.
SWR is flat and I received good reports from 40 miles away on a day when the band was relatively quiet.
Next step is to build my combination tilt over mast and rotor and get it around 40' in the air and see how it performs.
If you read the testimonials on their website, it seems to be a pretty good design.
I will have it oriented horizontally and be using it like a "poor man's" mini beam.
Highly inaccurate description, but I like it.
 
The 'Tak-Tena' is in the same catagory as the old 'Isotron'. It works, but does require some effort to make it work, and just don't expect miracles.
If you're limited in space or how you can get an antenna up, I'd have to say it's an alternative. Not having played with one, you'd have to decide how 'good' of an alternative it is.
For any indoor antenna, one handy 'accessory' is a five gallon bucket of torroids! There's just no way you won't have at least some RFI problems. Oh well...
- 'Doc
 
If you end up in an apartment with a metal roof you are pretty much screwed as far as a concealed antenna even if you have attic access.
Your only alternative would be an antenna that you could deploy on your balcony when needed.

My house was built in '51 and has a foil wrap on the outside and in the attic and I installed a metal roof about 6 years back.

My house is nearly "RF Proof" on the inside which does present some challenges.
 
Well I did a little experimenting today here at my house. Yeasu FT-890 to MFJ-962c to old RG8 center conductor to the down tube on the gutter and the shield was ran to a random length of 18 gauge steel solid core wire which I laid on the ground and dropped and strung out. It tuned up on 40m no problem. In addition it has much better 'ears' than my 11 meter antenna which I have only been used for listening (unless you count use on 11m)
 
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Hey, if it works go for it. Back in the 60's when my Father and his friends were getting into 11M one of his friends had a white face Johnson in his car with 102" whip.
Where he lived he was at the base of Grant mountain on the East side which put the mountain between him and Huntsville AL.
One afternoon he had pulled up under his carport and ended up with his whip touching the gutter on the house and he said that he was receiving a unit out of Huntsville loud and clear and could talk back to him.
My Father and myself went down to check it out and he was telling the truth.

I have said it before and I stand by the fact that RF will do what RF wants to do and damn the books and theory.

Someone else on here made the statement that under the right conditions a coat-hanger would perform.
 
well it (the rain gutter) tunes up pretty much anywhere 24mhz and below

As far as 'ears' go I can hear a lot more in the lower bands than I could on my 11m antenna

3.897.5 LSB I heard W0KL (fom IA) and K0LB (from IL) booming in at a solid s9 (on the 11m antenna they did not even move the needle)


it doesn't need a tuner for the most part on 80m

3.2MHz = 2.75 swr
3.3Mhz = 2.1
3.4MHz = 1.6
3.5MHz = 1.3
3.6MHz = 1.6
3.7MHz = 2.1
3.8MHz = 2.5
3.9MHz = 2.9
4.0MHz = 3.2

and 160m would be fine with an internal tuner

1.8Mhz = 3.0 swr
1.9Mhz = 2.5
1.8Mhz = 2.5
 

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