Ham Attic Antenna

It s a long way from the rabbit ear designs you might think of when picturing indoor antennas and much cooler looking than the metal contraptions often found outdoors.

Ham attic antenna.

The kb9vbr 2 meter j pole antenna is 69 inches tall overall. Again stay away from metal and wires to maintain your pattern. Antennas generally perform best when they re out in the clear but there is no law that says you can t use an outdoor antenna indoors. Many hams who live in covenant protected neighborhoods like to mount antennas in the attic to keep them out of sight.

On hf wire beams can be run on the roof supports or the rafters these usually are good for one direction only but can be switched electrically for different coverage. With time bare copper oxidizes the wood where the wire is tightly stapled to absorbs some of this oxidization and forms a loose yet lossy bond with the wire. Falling through the roof is a much more likely scenario. Thanks david for the insulators first to comment below i ll send you an insulator in the mail.

The next one on the list is a cage dipole. The attic shortwave antenna wire this is the most importantaspect to improve. For many years now designing antennas has been a passion for many a ham operator. It is theoretically possible to create a fire in the attic from your ham radio antenna but the conditions required for that to work require purpose and luck making this not a realistic concern for the typical attic farmer.

For this you will need either 4 or 6 inch 10 2 or 15 2 cm thick wall pvc sewer or water pipe and a way to cut it in either 1 4 or 1 2 inch 0 6 or 1 3 cm spreaders. Using the cq antennas center insulators from ke5fen. If you attic isn t tall enough you could angle the antenna mounting to make it fit. Need lots of room keep them away from metal objects like heaters and ducts wire antennas can be run near the peak of the roof inside the attic bent in odd shapes to match the space available.

The height of your antenna may be limited by your attic s apex and some signal attenuation may be expected from roof materials so an antenna that exhibits some gain may be desirable. On vhf a beam antenna can work well in the attic even a rotator can be used. Bare copper antenna wire stapled directly on wood rafters causes loss of rf signal energy. Attic antennas many types of antenna can be mounted in the attic if you don t have radiant barrier tech shield.

If you have some sort of attic in your home apartment or condo you re in luck. Viewer request to try out an antenna for ham radio in the attic. You will need a peak in your attic that is tall enough for the antenna to fit. Attics are great locations for indoor antennas.