Transmitting Gutter Antenna

I originally did a write up on it in 1994.

Transmitting gutter antenna.

Attached the feed line to a downspout and coax shield to grounding. This all aluminum gutter is fed with coax with an unterminated shield at this end shield connected to radio ground at the other to reduce nearby computer hash from inside the house. I did use rain gutter as antenna and water pipe as ground it worked great from 160 mtr to 10 mtr. Just refuses to work.

Aluminum and brand new so they probably made contact. Unlike gregg s gutter antenna the spout and long horizontal section were made from plastic. By jack ciaccia wmøg. 41 countries in 5 hours with 100 watts into a rain gutter.

Economics and efficiency are the main objectives. Furthermore antenna tuners placed at the transmitter allow substantial losses in feed lines to be corrected in order to fool a transmitter into working correctly. However i recommend cw for such installations. Using the terms rain gutter and efficiency are a contridiction.

Most of the original article is still relevant but i have. I ve always fed gutter antennas from the bottom of a downspout using a coax pigtail one end with an so 239 uhf connector same as what s on the back of most ham cb radios center of the coax going to the gutter and braid going to a nearby grounding point of some kind either a ground rod worst case scenario radials better or groundrod with radials best option. This gutter antenna is connected via an upper roof level downspout where no personal contact is possible. Rain gutters are a compromise at best.

Also less interference is created to neighbour s tv etc from cw than ssb. I have a couple of questions for anyone with expertise or experience in using a rain gutter as an antenna. 500 hz or narrower cw filter really takes away many noises compare to wider setting of ssb voice. Started to think about some alternative stealthy antenna designs.

And weaker signal from such set up can be heard better in cw. Well not to put the nice radial system i had recently planted to waste i. I noticed the rain gutters and downspouts of my house. A ham friend of mine recently asked me for the details of how i use my rain gutter and downspout as an antenna.

Having limited space for wire antennas elected to use one of the house rain gutters for low hf 40 80 160 the gutter is 67 long continuous aluminum. Check the black markers on the map and if all of your desired stations are transmitting from the same area or within 20 of each other you can use a uni directional antenna. If the transmitters are positioned more than 20 apart it is best to use a multi directional antenna. The losses are dissipated through heat or to ground.

Rain gutter antenna with sg 230. Check out the element uni directional long range antenna. That article found its way into several ham radio publications and newsletters. The antenna from her dining room window my typical luck.