Stealth Rain Gutter Antenna

Another stealth antenna using gutters is the christmas lights antenna.

Stealth rain gutter antenna.

Stealth gutter antenna for ham radio or shortwave. I have wanted to try this for a while but never got around to it until today. During wet weather this type of antenna will usually perform very poorly. Inverted l wire antenna remote tuner required.

I was eager to get back on the air. 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. Rain gutter should be a new gutter. A rain gutter antenna is less than ideal but it s a lot better than nothing.

I did a quick coax run to the outside gutter and grounded the braided side then connected the feedline to an old mfj tuner. It was 1975 and my new bride and i moved into an apartment complex in sterling heights michigan. Gutter antenna for ham radio or short wave. Bonded together the longer the better gutter downspouts can t be grounded ground and radials required remote tuner required.

The wood the gutter is mounted to should be dry and of good quality. It is 80 feet long and off center fed as a windom with a single wire lead in to a tuner. I looked at several possible solutions including one developed by my good ham friend friday lunch buddy stealth antenna compatriot long time dxer celebrated author and renowned physicist yardley beers wøjf who did all the complex mathematical calculations on my rain gutter antenna and offered me a coil design that could be added to the feedpoint in order for it to load on 160 meters. Rain gutter antennas are a very old form of stealth antenna and can be very effective but there are some other things you must consider if you want to use your gutters.

It is the rain gutter along the front of a house. Unlike gregg s gutter antenna the spout and long horizontal section were made from plastic. I was surprised that the gutter tuned up at a. Stealth antennas are a compromise multiband antennas are a compromise pick one from the list below.

So i just ran an appropriate length of 18 awg speaker wire inside the plastic downspout and horizontal section sealing the ends with waterproof silicone caulk and attached the antenna segment to the main wire of some rg 8 coax while i connected the coax ground braid to buried counterpoise wires.