Rain Gutter Shortwave Antenna
500 hz or narrower cw filter really takes away many noises compare to wider setting of ssb voice.
Rain gutter shortwave antenna. 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. A couple of years ago i had written an article on the use of my rain gutter on my home as my hf antenna. I was surprised that the gutter tuned up at a. I built variations of this antenna when i lived in several rental homes on hawaii island shortly after getting my novice class amateur radio license back in 1977.
Unlike gregg s gutter antenna the spout and long horizontal section were made from plastic. This gutter antenna is connected via an upper roof level downspout where no personal contact is possible. I did a quick coax run to the outside gutter and grounded the braided side then connected the feedline to an old mfj tuner. However i recommend cw for such installations.
Rain gutters are notorious for having poor electrical contacts at joints that act as diodes and cause severe tvi merely because an antenna is near them. Would looping the lead in wire around the gutter or downspout work or is a physical metal to metal connection necessary. This configuration has also. I have wanted to try this for a while but never got around to it until today.
Second article on the rain gutter antenna. I had great time. The results have been surprisingly good for shortwave listening using the crane ccradioswshortwave receiver. Stealth gutter antenna for ham radio or shortwave.
It uses only 4 wires and a unique antenna property called harmonics to get 8 bands using only 4 wires. The multiband long wire shortwave antenna a much better but more complicated antenna this antenna is end supported and designed to receive the major shortwave bands between 90 meters and 16 meters. Trying to drive the gutter itself as an antenna is really asking for trouble. And weaker signal from such set up can be heard better in cw.
The rain gutter antenna has a vertical component approximately 25 high and extends horizontally across the roof line for 35. Also less interference is created to neighbour s tv etc from cw than ssb. I did use rain gutter as antenna and water pipe as ground it worked great from 160 mtr to 10 mtr.