Apartments and condos can be a challenge but not an insurmountable one. A balcony helps a lot. I mount a hamstick for the band du jour on my 5th floor balcony rail and throw a quarter wave counterpoise over the side. Neighbors and condo police haven't noticed (or don't care). Basically a bent dipole and the ATU makes the rig happy. 155 countries says it works pretty well. 73, Ian N8IK s/n 10111
-----Original Message----- From: Elecraft [mailto:elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of lstavenhagen Sent: Wednesday, April 6, 2016 16:04 To: elecraft@mailman.qth.net Subject: Re: [Elecraft] [k3] Isotropic Antenna I have decades of experience with trying to operate out of 2nd story or higher apartments. My findings are the biggest difficulties are: - grounding - getting the antenna outside. To sum it up, the interiors of most apartments are essentially RF anechoic chambers. This is due to the structures and wiring which basically form a gigantic Faraday cage around your antenna when it's inside. When it's on the 2nd floor, the problem is compounded by being too far above the ground to get a good ground. So basically, it's less important what type of antenna you use than it is to merely get it outside. What I've done in the past is just throw a wire out the window into a neighboring tree and just hope the apt. managers don't notice it's there. Even dangling the wire out of the window towards the ground will work better than trying to string something up inside. What I did was buy a Buddipole and pelican case for my rigs, and do all my operating /p. It's inconvenient at night, of course, but it does get me outside and gives me some exercise. Otherwise, like I said, priority #1 is just to get whatever it is outside the building. And that usually means a wire and a tuner in the rig.... 73, LS W5QD -- View this message in context: http://elecraft.365791.n2.nabble.com/k3-Isotropic-Antenna-tp7615991p7615992. html Sent from the Elecraft mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to ik7...@verizon.net ----- No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2016.0.7497 / Virus Database: 4545/11969 - Release Date: 04/05/16 ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
