New house, new shack, new antenna?

[MrToOL]

Hi All,
So, heres the thing, I've moved into a new property that has a fair sized garden (better than the flat I was in) and it gives me the ability to build a shack and put up a half decent antenna.
I was thinking of investing in a 5/8 wave (Sirio Gain Master for example) and a length of pole to hang the thing off.
One of the issues I have is with the electricity sub station thing on the other side of the fence.
The idea is to have the shack and pole/antenna in the left hand corner of the garden.
Here are two pics one of the garden and the other of the substation thing facing North.

Dodge elec2.jpg

elec wtf2.jpg

Any comments and advice most appreciated.

Perhaps I could leech power from it to run a burner ? mmm, maybe not a good idea...

cheers,
Grant

[radiogaga]

I suspect, aside from the dangers of a vertical antenna, you are going to suffer some serious stress from that service transformer.

Before you start with antennas, if it were me, run up an SDR and see how the frequencies you want to operate on suffer or not.

I wouldn't even entertain a vertical but instead look at running a loop (if the garden is square) round the garden.

....if it were me!

[MrToOL]

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, true..I don't know how noisy that things going to be. I've yet to get into SDRs - if you could recommend one, i'm all ears.
I have a Tecsun PL-880 that I could fire up for now to see how much noise is produced on HF.

[radiogaga]

Yep that’s fine, will give you an idea. A cheap SDR dongle will just give you a visual representation over a great portion of the spectrum.
What you have is fine.

[radiogaga]

What frequencies you looking at operating on? I’ve assumed 11m

[The Collector]

Use an old cb handheld and see if it knocks it out with noise first.

Can you put the aerial up right next to the house on brackets rather than the proposed shack? A few extra metres of co-ax wont make a difference and it might get you a safer distance away.

Ask the leccy company nicely to move it, explaining it's ruining your Fidelity 1000's receiving capablities

[MrToOL]

Hi,
Well, I have an President Adams at the moment, and that'll be 11m SSB...27.555....although, i'd like to explore the possibilities of a Foundation Licence in the future......

Yeah, your right, an old handie would tell a lot...off to the bay then......Crikey! some of these handies go for around £100+...Although that Midland Alan 42 looks like nice piece of kit and has an SO239...

I think my other half wants the antenna as far away from the bungalow as possible, although i'm sure i could talk her around if needed. I did mention to her that it would be high - very high....there is also the option of using the loft....
I did have a look at a YouTube vid from Fred In The Shed.....he has an Antron 99 on a pole inserted into a garden furniture stand and some sand bags as ballast....interesting what we go to to get on the air these days in a built up environment.
https://youtu.be/rWi8FJF4n-c

Cheers,
Grant

[radiogaga]

I’m a bit of a scaredie cat. If you are anywhere those overheads make sure your antenna is properly fixed. Fred in shed is fine, you don’t want to end up as dead Fred in the shed!

If you don’t have a handy make up a dipole, keep it up against that fence, horizontally and see how that goes with you Adams.

[MrToOL]

Crikey, yes, indeed your so right...safety is paramount. I'm not going anywhere near that transformer! Having spoken to a neighbour, he heard that the electricity company might be taking it down sometime, but he doesn't know when, so there are options for the future.
Thanks for your input..I'm going to checkout the noise first then sit back and think about some SAFE options.....and yes, a dipole is an elegant solution.

[The Collector]

A quick mooch with a handheld might also show if you've local PLT interference problems, at least on the CB frequencies anyway.

Get on ebay and find a cheap but working handheld with a full-size aerial if you're not going to use it afterwards, that's if you can't borrow one for an hour. It'll pick up more than a modern midland with its dinky aerial unless you use the in-car adapter on the Midland and use a magmount or homebase aerial on it temporarily. You can always resell it afterwards.

[Tigersaw]

transformer.JPG

I have a very similar thing just outside my garden hedge.
It doesn't really cause any problems, a single LED light causes much more issues.

[radiogaga]

That's a Rhododendron that's why. They produce very little EMI, Hydrangea, as the OP has are a nightmare

[MrToOL]

I think you'll find there Alcea (Holloyhock) - The've grown so tall in the heat that I could probably hang a twig off of one of them instead !!

Hoping to power up my Short Wave radio with a long wire and report results back...maybe tomorrow or weekend.

Cheers,
Grant

[radiogaga]

I think you'll find there Alcea (Holloyhock) - The've grown so tall in the heat that I could probably hang a twig off of one of them instead !!

Hoping to power up my Short Wave radio with a long wire and report results back...maybe tomorrow or weekend.

Cheers,
Grant

I did think that but your soil looks to rich to support the growth of Alcea

Good luck with the radio.... fingers crossed !

[The Collector]

A wet Hollyhock has approximately the same db gain as my Antron 10ft off the ground has