Should You Upgrade Your Ham Radio & Compromised Attic Antennas
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- Опубліковано 7 сер 2024
- Back again with "No Dumb Questions In Ham Radio"! Today we have to great emails from Steve and Stephen. What kind of attic antenna should someone run? And when is the right time to upgrade you ham radio gear?
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I love that you "found more time" in your schedule! I must applaud your increased quality and quantity of your visual content. We always loved your audio content, but I am 100% sure you can have more of an impact, and assist others to a greater degree by your videos! Thanks for letting me watch and listen through the whole process! De K1MAZ
It’s crazy how getting that evening back to not drink and sleep has helped things. Lol.
There are NO dumb questions in Ham Radio! Nicely stated, Josh.
Really timely video as I’ve just gone all in and installed an EFRW in my attic as I’m in a condo townhouse in Canada with rules similar to that of an HOA common in the US. I built a 9:1 EFRW with a Nelson transformer and went with 41’ as the length as I assumed I could fit it in the attic. I already had a 2m/70cm Signal Stalk mobile antenna up in the attic so I knew the space I was working with. Tested the antenna outside, off the deck, at parks during POTA activations, etc for 6 months and was sure it would work. Hired a local electrician as I’m too old and tall to do the install. He was able to string the antenna and counterpoise up, run a conduit from a closet up to the attic and run both antenna coax lines down to the second floor. It’s working extremely well! Making lots of contacts on FT8 and SSB using my QRP FT-818, on 80-6m. I even got a station from Perth, Australia coming in repeatedly on FT8 a few nights ago, 19000 km away! If only my 6watts could rich him! Pleased with my EFRW attic antenna!
"...REACH him..." !!
I live in an HOA and an end fed half wave along the ridge in the attic has worked well for me on FT-8. Phone conversations work also but quite limited compared to any outside antenna. For clarification my antenna is 66 ft laong and is about 15 feet above the ground and I am feeding it with 50 feet of LMR-400.
For very limited space and HOA magnetic loop antennas are really powerful and underestimated. Yes, very narrow band (but from other side - they work as an excellent front-end preselector :)), but they are independent of the height above the ground + they have unique and superior characteristics to the low-hanging dipoles: vertical polarization on very very low take of angles (DX-ing !!) and horizontal for high (vertical) angles (NVIS capability). Not mention that they can null a lot of local RFI typical for HOA :)
Hello Josh, I am not in a HOA, and I live in a 2-story house. I wanted to try out a loop antenna.
I laid out my antenna on the roof, litterly laid flat on the roof. I used a manual tuner and
it worked very well and because I used black insulated wire it blended in with the black shingles
on the roof. I ran the feed line in through the attic vent to the radio. Low visibility and made
some DX contacts with it as well as the states. Good Video 73's Gary KF6EWO
Nicely done!
Loving these Q&A vids. Great stand-alone stuff that is highly useful.
Thank you Dennis!
I'm running a multiband dipole at the attic for some months now and it workes damn well! Its 20 and 15m and I will add 10 for sure in the next weeks. Have fun bulding it! Best, DK7FM :)
I'm just snickering at the 'feng in the background glitching away after he pointed it out on a previous video. 😆
It’s a good decor item now!
It's like Christmas lights for radio nerds! 😃
Very helpful
All good and relevant questions. Thanks for the kind answers!
Thanks for watching!
For an attic antenna I've made a Cobwebb. It's a halo style folded fan dipole which has wires for 20, 17, 15, 12, 10 and 6m. It's about a 3m x 3m square, slightly less, and flat in the horizontal plane. It's a way of getting full sized dipoles in on each of these bands, but in a small area. My attic is only 5m wide and I'm in a mid-terrace house (neighbours both sides).
I ran an attic fan dipole on 10/15/20 with the 20 in a "Z" pattern because of size constraints. Worked incredibly well, over half way around the globe until digital cable tv was installed in the townhouses. Start with a single band and see what the noise floor is going to be before moving forward.
Good tips!
I'm an attic fan dipole user too. Mine is setup for all bands 10 through 40. I get a bit of odd interference from he neighbour's security system, but other than that it works very well. Plans are on my QRZ page if anyone's interested in making something similar. M7TDV
Really good video Josh!!!👍🏻👍🏻
Thank you!
Thanks for your help
Thanks for watching!
great video. lots of good info. thanks.
concerning steve's question, you mentioned an eaves antenna and also mentioned how the height might not be ideal. something you made me think about is if his house has a gabled (or similar) roof with a long peak that runs the length of the house. in this situation, since a lot of roofs nowadays use an eave vent system, it might be possible to use that to get the coax outside from the attic and connect it to a dipole the is secured laying along the peak of the roof. this would be almost totally invisible from the road and the tuner could easily be placed in the attic out of sight from prying HOA eyes. if he can get away with it, maybe offset the dipole off the peak a few inches. this would be more visible, but hopefully not enough to cause the HOA to complain.
you also mentioned the fan dipole set up inside the attic. again, if he can get this outside by laying it directly on one or both sides of the roof, it might be hidden enough that no one will complain. and again, depending on how picky the HOA is, he might be able to offset this above the roof a couple of inches instead of laying it on the roof. not sure if the small offset will make a difference, but it might be somewhat helpful.
I think part of it also depends on the HOA. You might have a situation where the HOA has a rule but nobody enforces or cares about it, so long as you are reasonable. I would think mounting a hamstick in an inconspicuous location might be safe
This person might benefit from using one of the MFJ 926 or 993 remote tuners. They are gold! Especially if he can just get a thin 16 awg wire up in the tree. My HOA doesn't even see it
Suing the HOA might be more viable than it sounds. Granted it's been really hit-or-miss, but the ARRL has a whole "find a lawyer" page to get counsel that actually knows something about the FCC regulations. (Technically, you shouldn't sue the HOA, you should set up an antenna and then fight them with scary legalese when they complain.)
Another option for a stealth antenna that has a lot of history is to use your home's gutters as an antenna. It takes a little work to make it electrically sound, and obviously a whole lot of tuning to make it resonate anywhere useful, but it's essentially a very long random wire antenna. Ground it real good because random wire, but it can work.
Regarding the first question: does he have rain gutters? I've experimented with the rain gutter antenna. Though it's not good, it's not bad either. You do need to use a tuner, but it will work.
Tip - being your teaching, could you state the long form of abbreviations? I have no clue what FT8 system or DMR is. Lol. -- not suggesting to go into detail but at least define for the ammo for a solid Google search on my end. - Thanks! Me like the latter question have been licensed since the early 90's and just now getting back into it from the GMRS side over the last year. Wow alot has changed sine the 90's!
Ft8 is a popular HF digital mode that works good when bands are bad. DMR is a vhf/uhf digital voice mode.
Hi Josh, thanks for all your great info you put out for us!👍 i am interested in getting my license here in🇨🇦 so I am at the moment like a spunge sucking up all the info I can get...
As a request, could you maybe post some interesting Apps or web sites for newbies that would help further our knowledge...😉 i would appreciate it...thanks 73
I think I have some videos on ham radio apps. Check them out.
They had good questions. Last year I bought a FT3DR and then found out I don’t have any system fusion repeaters without driving 30+ miles. I should have known better.
Can still use a hotspot
What are your goals. What do you want to do? Modes? Bands? Then make purchases from there.
Too many rigs have features I will never use.
The Y FT 200, 300, 400 do have a data port for digi, and dual display. But the FTM6000 single display, dual band, Digi port, small size, tank sturdy, and George Jetson simple to operate. In my sweat spot
What a lot of hams are looking for is 2/.70m FM/SSB mobile with a Digi port for packet/Winlink No D-star or the like. That should not be THAT difficult to build
That’s true.
I think you forgot to mention to avoid proximity to metal roofs, metal fascia and metal down pipes. I also have foil backed insulation under my metal roof so a roof space antenna is unfortunately not an answer for me here in Australia. Its quite a popular choice downunder compared to concrete or terracotta roof tiles. No plywood base and asphalt shingles here.🙁👍
The emailer included that in the email. 👍
Wire on wooden fence with electric fence insulators works for HF!
That will work!
The Technician from the 1980s. He needs to check to see if he can upgrade to General if he had taken both parts of the Technician Test. He might be able ti upgrade by filling out a paper this is what I did
Oh no! No mention of tube sets? Clickbait in thumbnail suggested an HT test might have occurred :p VX-6 interesting choice for a reference HT. VX-7 was where it was at. Some of my best HT audio reports were from a VX-7 (no gasket removal or heresy such). Beware of SMA adapters ruining your set. Was close to suing the company that I bought the adapter from as it was nasty garbage not fit for purpose though I decided not worth headache. Not a cheap radio to be killed in action like that though. That VX-6 sounded a bit nasty. Aligned it? There is an amount of passionate love or hate for the vx5-8 series radios though my personal experience was that they were mostly fantastic. Samples not consistent though tested multiple later models and they were fine. Saved up pennies since thinking 'well this is cool' with a vx-5 back when that came out. Saved and finally splurged on the VX-7. Need to upgrade my cert then I will magically not kill the vx7 during surgery. Props on the board layout Yaesu... real great anchor position for the antenna feed (/s). Not a fan of surface mount soldering at the best of times. Wish me luck.
I put up a hyendfed 40/20/10m 11.85m antenna in my attic and have made ft8 contacts the world over
Nice
Upgrade EVERYTHING!!!
I mean, that’s my approach.
HF? Build a tilting antenna out of a 20 foot piece of chain link fence top rail. Put a Yaesu ATAS-120A on top of it.
One man can easily raise and lower the antenna and if it's themed (fancy way of saying painted) to match your house most bone heads in your HOA will never even notice it.
Do you have any tall trees? Install the antenna so that the whip is just above the top of the tree.
Can you do an in debt hackrf one course???? I Will Thank you alot
I don't have one.
100% I would (and did) upgrade taking into account what will happen to the chip market once China invades Taiwan.
As a common practice, is there anything wrong with leaving an HT in its drop-in charging cradle even after it has fully charged? I have heard it is harmful to the battery.
Depends on your charger. Does it only have two contact point? If so then no good, it can over heat.
In general, lithium batteries doent like being at 100%. When you take it off, it will slowly trickle down but if u leave it on, it's at 100% all the time.
Is the charger high end like my drone chargers My drone charger will let it trickle down.
I like your video very much. I want to share and forward them to other HAMs in China to enjoy your video and learn together. Do you agree？Because you know China HAM is hard to log into UA-cam
No, I’d rather be the one to upload and keep my content.
@@HamRadioCrashCourse ok，i know，thank you
Thank you so much for this one, Josh, and for recognizing that there are a bunch of us with challenging locations and no experience.
For me, this video is *FAR* more interesting, concise, and specific than the very long 'chats' you have been doing. I live in a third-floor apartment in a complex of similar buildings. I am working on my first license and currently only have a (non-Baofeng) handheld radio that does a good job of getting the local NOAA broadcast and nothing else.
I have no attic, no lawn, no roof, no backyard, and no grass. I have one set of south-facing windows...and I live in a *very* rural county in South Dakota that has ONE repeater, no clubs, and less than 12 licensed amateur radio operators. To say I have restrictions is an understatement, so hearing and watching other hams describe their elaborate shack and antenna setups is both irrelevant and unhelpful. This one was what I need: your expertise specifically directed at what you have said is your focus, those of us who want to get in and have lots of 'stupid' questions.
Thanks again and let's have more!
There's a couple classic solutions for apartment living with strict rules about modifying things. Sticking a vertical (with a hefty loading coil to keep the length down) out on a balcony, especially sticking it in a flower pot and calling it art, is a classic strategy. You can also surreptitiously wire up to the gutters, if they're metal, but you have to be careful that nobody can come in contact with them while you're transmitting, and that you have some way to ground everything is your shack real well (tricky on the 3rd floor)...
@@oasntet Yup. Third floor and NO balcony or access to the outside. I might just not be successful…
@@DenaliDad Well, in Europe the indoor mag loop antenna is popular. Really expensive if you go with the fully-automated variable vacuum capacitor, but there's also a much simpler and cheaper manual trombone capacitor approach.
Why?
Be sure and check out the HOA Ham on UA-cam. He has good ideas.
Why is 10 Meters going to pick up in the next 2-3 years?
Our Sun operates on an eleven year cycle high and low solar activity. On high activity the ten meter band is super charged!
I see, thank you! @@HamRadioCrashCourse
And I am not a TOY STORY ham. Do not need the lastest toy out there. Let the market "beta test" for a year, then I MSY buy.
Super comme d'habitude. Je t'ai envoyé un mail à ce propos pour cette vidéo. 73/F8MGW