Above is the view to the east. North-east to Europe will be up to the left. Straight out to the east gets me across the Atlantic to Central Africa.
Here is the view looking south. All of South America is down there, followed by Antarctica. Then up an around the pole to Sumatra and Borneo. I can hear the Indonesians quite well on 15 SSB.
Looking west. Central America, then lots of Pacific Ocean all the way to Western Australia. I have worked VK6JMS who is in the nothern part of Western Australia, in "The Kimberly."
Here is the view to the north-west. You can see how the top floor of our building blocks most of the signals from the U.S. and Canada when the antenna is at the terrace level (where it is now).
I think I will stick with simple 1/4 wave verticals. There is a lot of wind up here and we are not in the apartment about half the year. I wouldn't want a Hex Beam to get blow over, especially when we are not here. Simplicity is a virtue. I think I can get the antenna above the top floor of our building by mounting it (base of the antenna near the top) on the support beam (for a sun shade) shown here. This should greatly improve signals to and from North America. And I could easily take it down before we leave without having to climb up onto the roof.
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Fiberglass telescopic masts (army surplus) with a double zepp antenna fed with an open Feedline and a balanced tuner (old Johnson matchbox). Or a 30 / 40 ft telescopic pole (fishing rod) with radials and grounding. Use an home brew matching unit at the base or splurge for a remote end fed antenna ATU...
ReplyDeleteBTW with the vertical you might pick up a lot of QRM so you might want to build a magnetic loop for RX.
ReplyDeleteSounds reasonable Bill. Wind is a formidable antenna foe. A simple vertical survived 95 KM/h gusts here in Germany. My neighbor's 14 MHz beam ended up in his next door neighbors pool and pearced the pool liner. That cost him $$$
ReplyDeleteBernt
Rogier might be on to something. I'm also a (year-round) apartment dweller. I have some end-feds in the trees around the place, but I've wanted to experiment with mag loops using remote tuning of vacuum capacitors. I'd put the loop out on either the front or back deck. In addition to relatively-small size and portability, they might offer at least some relief from the huge amount of noise I have here--in the form of their directionality, and also their (admittedly) annoying narrow bandwidth.
ReplyDeleteInstead of fibreglass telescopic fishing rods, look on amazon (or wherever) for the same thing but labelled as flagpoles. I got a six metre one for 27 pounds recently and the difference is that these poles do not have a thin whippy end like those used for fishing. - 72 de Tony G4WIF
ReplyDeletep.s. my pole also came with a steel rod with a thread on the bottom and a "tommy bar" that allowed you to screw it into the ground and then lower the pole over it so that it is self supporting.
DeleteNot helpful I know Bill when up on a roof!
- Tony
How does Bill get the flagpole to the Dominican Republic? Also something retractable is better to take down during his absence or more importantly lightning storms...
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