Hi antenna challenged fellow hams. You can do your own stealth gutter antenna these days.
Two easy ways: 1) Get a combination of metal gutter and one short section of plastic gutter to join two metal halves of a dipole. Remember, you can use shorter than quarter wave lengths of elements, since their cross section is large compared to wavelength. 2) Even easier: Get all plastic. Lay dipole elements in bottom of plastic gutter. Even hook up wire can be used for elements. Glue them to corner of gutter bottom that will be furtherest from the house. Better still, glue them UNDER the gutter corner, so water in gutter will not stand on antenna wire. Use 1/4 inch coax feed to feedpoint, or twin lead, again glued to underside of gutter. Run it into soffit, and then to rig. An all band tuner, will facilitate operations on multiple bands, especially if the dipole is at least 60 per cent of a half wave for the lowest frequency of interest. Your nearest Lowe's or Home Depot is already a stealth antenna store, and you did not know it. Even coax can be purchased there! I regularly use insulators and standoff's from Home Depot's electric fence department for various home antenna projects. They have a compression spring for electric fence gates that is ideal for relieving stress in a dipole element tied to a tree. Unlike a door spring which is extension type, this spring will not elongate with use. At least, not as much as extension springs. Stuart K5KVH _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
