Antenna & Band Help

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KiloBravo312
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Antenna & Band Help

Post by KiloBravo312 »

40m Question.

I will hopefully become a foundation license holder and I will be operating on 10watts as it goes.

Im normally a 11m static mobile DX’er and I have been doing that for a number of years. However I am finding myself unoccupied in the hobby during the winter months as..
1. it is too cold for me to sit on the hills in my 50’s
2. No propagation when the sun goes down.

Now I am retired it would be nice to be able to continue the hobby in the winter months during the dark nights.

So I have done plenty of research and watched plenty of youtube videos and it look like 40 meters may be the best band to choose for local and long distance stations, but I have many issues with setting up a home base.

I live in a small town house side to side with a long row of houses all semidetached.
I have a 10m x 5m back garden that faces other groups of houses and my back fence faces a wide public right of way pedestrian path with heavy traffic.
So antenna’s wise there are lots of issues.
Nothing else in the area apart from tv and dishes so I will stand out like a sore thumb.
I dont want to either too much. Someone might decide to climb over from the path and take it home.

Ive checked my house and im 85m above sea level in Yorkshire.
Here’s what I was thinking!
1. An end fed 1/2 wave wire antenna around the garden along the fences, even on short poles.
2. Loft antenna.
3. 1/4 wave up on the chimney stack. (Not seen any 1/4 wave antenna’s though).

I dont know a great deal about Antennas or how to build them so I will be purchasing one. Im not interested in discussion about transmitters yet until ive hopefully got an antenna plan sorted.
If 40 meter isnt correct then all advice welcome.

Regards Rob.
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ch25
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Re: Antenna & Band Help

Post by ch25 »

1/4 on chimney and a few radials.
But... it will be almost 10m high.
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KiloBravo312
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Re: Antenna & Band Help

Post by KiloBravo312 »

ch25 wrote: 01 Mar 2023, 09:39 1/4 on chimney and a few radials.
But... it will be almost 10m high.
Thanks for the reply.
Local authorities only allow 60cm past roof line.
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ch25
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Re: Antenna & Band Help

Post by ch25 »

So you are limited a lot.
A friend of mine in UK, similar location like yours have 16m wire fed with FC-40 tuner on the wall.
100W FT8, he made circa 140 DXCC and hit he wall. Can't work more due to poor antenna.
Chris
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Alan Pilot
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Re: Antenna & Band Help

Post by Alan Pilot »

I have a 20mtr wire connected to a 5:1 unun in a small garden a sloping V layout.
Worked the world on it on 10w or lower.
It even covers top band with no tuner but some bands have a 2 SWR but not a problem.
I know it's a compromised aerial but it just works for me.
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Re: Antenna & Band Help

Post by paulears »

Antennas range from random lengths or wire that you tune with an ATU, to really complex resonant ones, and there are loads of designs you then modify to your location. Remember WW2? The resistance got really good at hiding antennas from people with guns, not the local authority who at best, hit you with a fine.

It’s all about experimenting, that’s what ham radio is about. Try something and see how it works.

I’d get or make a simple ATU capable of tuning almost anything. Then you can experiment with wires on fences, sloping wires and disguised stuff. Lofts can work, but modern lofts tend to be full of your antenna amps and cabling for sockets around the house, and your TV. Now TV is digital, the interference you create is often less noticed because instead of strange patterns on the screens of TVs and noise on radios, you just lose the tv picture, or the DAB radio goes silent. People are unaware it’s you! Worse still is your antenna might pick up huge amounts of local interference, so it’s not just about getting out, it’s about being able to hear the other stations. I spent ages in my office getting an HF antenna up and working, to discover so much interference from my neighbours I could not hear anything, and when I pressed transmit, the office computers next door all crashed when my RF got into their wired network. I gave up!
KiloBravo312
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Re: Antenna & Band Help

Post by KiloBravo312 »

Thanks for the reply guys. very helpful.
Ive done a little more work on the matter since my post and ive made some progress.
I think that it may be more pragmatic regarding antennas to look at setting up a 20m station!
Ive been listening on 20m via WebSDR and there seems to be a good amount of activity in the evenings and night on there and that may well suit me.
Additionally I might have found a solution to an outdoor antenna for the back of the house.
I spotted this…

https://www.ukantennas.co.uk/product/20 ... h-bracket/

I plan to get an installer to remove my TV antenna and dish from the house as they are redundant now. I dont use them any more at all and stream only. On the TV short mast at the topside of the house, fit the feed there and run the wire to the back and off the garden to a pole.
Whats do you think?
The run from the topside to the end of the back garden fence is 14.4m.

I spotted a guy on QRZ…

https://www.qrz.com/db/M1EQN

He has a small house and small back garden and he seems to have done this with success.

Will the wire have to be totally horizontal or can I get away with a slope towards the back fence?

Regards Rob.
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ch25
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Re: Antenna & Band Help

Post by ch25 »

10m x 5m back garden just hang a dipole. Start on chimney end somewhere in the garden.
Woud be way more efficient than that endfed from link above.
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Re: Antenna & Band Help

Post by Transwarp »

@KiloBravo312
As paulears mentioned, interference on receive from all the modern tech we have today is the biggest problem for us. Having spent a certain amount of the old hard earned - and the effort in setting up a station - only to find on the grand switch on that you've got loads of noise is a deflating experience.

Given your limited options because of your location etc my suggestion is you start cheap with making up and testing / trying out wire antennas, as l've found them the best for HF when location restricts what you can install.

Kit wise, well a decent ATU is going to be a must have, as is an antenna analyser.

It gets easier as you go up in frequency for antennas as you can use small verticals for the likes of VHF and UHF.

If all else fails you can just use internet linked radio but to me that's not really radio in the traditional sense.
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Re: Antenna & Band Help

Post by justron »

KiloBravo312 wrote: 01 Mar 2023, 08:59 40m Question.

I will hopefully become a foundation license holder and I will be operating on 10watts as it goes.

Im normally a 11m static mobile DX’er and I have been doing that for a number of years. However I am finding myself unoccupied in the hobby during the winter months as..
1. it is too cold for me to sit on the hills in my 50’s
2. No propagation when the sun goes down.

Now I am retired it would be nice to be able to continue the hobby in the winter months during the dark nights.
KiloBravo312 wrote: 02 Mar 2023, 08:01 Thanks for the reply guys. very helpful.
Ive done a little more work on the matter since my post and ive made some progress.
I think that it may be more pragmatic regarding antennas to look at setting up a 20m station!

20 meters is not a winters evening band. It's all to do with the ionosphere. The best bands for winters evenings are 40 meters & down & preferably 80 meters & down.
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Re: Antenna & Band Help

Post by paulears »

I have a nice multi and icom HF radio. Not been plugged in for two years as the noise at home is extreme. I took it to the office where I have a quad band vertical on the roof. Great for 2 and 70, ok ish for 10/11 no idea about 50, but it’s something on 70mhz with a 2.5 VSWR. Pressed the PTT and crashed the office next door’s phone system as the incoming lines are ten feet away.

Personally, you need to experiment with HF. So when the tv antenna guy is there, forget an antenna, just get him to fit a pulley to the bracket and some nylon cord so you can pull things up from the ground. That will be the most useful thing if you don’t do ladder work. Try various wires and just pull the end up!

It’s well wort( spending twenty five quid on an SDR dongle and see what sort of noises you can hear before you spend money.
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