Antenna Experimenting

Since I live in an apartment, my choices of antennas are limited. My first antenna here back in October of '08 was a random wire of about 40 feet. I found out quickly that this produced a lot of electrical noise that covered most of even the decent stations. Being busy at work and day to day activities, I just let it go for awhile, resigned to trying to dial in some common stations.

My previous antenna at my other residence was a long-wire of about 90 feet with proper grounding. My DX-160 was picking up some very interesting stations, which I logged but have since misplaced the log sheets. With winter coming on and being limited in my choice of antennas at the new place, I packed away the DX.

The bug then hit me again with a new radio, the CC SW. So, I went into experimental mode and started working with the random wire set-up. I tried better grounding of the radio and antenna, and even ran a counter-poise to try to make the signal better. In the end, though, I was actually doing better with the whip antenna on the radio. So, shopping I went.

About 4 years ago, I built a helical-wound antenna - a "Broomstick Special" if you will, and had much success with it. I used a 4 foot piece of 1-inch PVC and 16 gauge solid wire. I wound about 110 feet of wire onto the pipe, topped it with a 9 inch metal plate, and it just blew smoke. A very good set up indeed.

I bought the items I needed to build another Helical, but this time I wanted to build it as cheap as I could. I used a 3/4 inch wooden dowel, about 4 feet tall, two strand electric cord wire, two hose clamps top and bottom to hold the wire, and a galvanized 6 inch round shallow gang box for the static cap.

This set-up seemed to work okay, but not nearly as good as the previous helical. Back to the drawing board.

I was outside smoking (Yeah, I know, I know!) and was looking at the clouds in anticipation of the next winter storm coming in. I was looking also at the icicles that had formed on the gutter. Hmmm, gutter. Would that work as an antenna? It was metal and it was HUGE!

My apartment building is a two-story with an apex roof (Pyramid style), so the gutter system went all the way around the building. From my calculations, it ran about 200 feet, plus or minus. And it was, by default, multi-directional.

So off to the store I went again. I had plenty of wire so I picked up some alligator clips to experiment with. If it did work I would sheet metal screw it onto the gutter.

After it was all hooked up, I fired up the DX-160, hooked up the antenna, and was confronted by a stronger signal, but a hell of a lot of noise. So, I ran a counter-poise of about 15 feet from the radio, but this did little to curb the noise.

Now dammit, I've done battle with RF noise before but not near as bad as this. The grounding wasn't working and I found out why. The copper pipes inside the apartment connect to PVC under the building, and the electrical system wasn't grounded, either on purpose or just wired improperly. UGGGH! There was nowhere I could put a grounding rod in because of all the concrete and asphalt. The electrical service comes in on the other side of the building, so tapping that ground wasn't practical.

So, just for giggles, I took the alligator clip off the gutter's downspout and connected it to the stop sign on the corner, which is only about 10 feet from my window.

Wow, I must say I was impressed. The bad RF noise was to a minimum and I was getting good, strong signals. Just for comparison, WWV would normally come in at about a 333 SIO on a good day. At 5000KHz, it was burying my signal meter and the fading wasn't bad.

There are two lessons learned here: Never give up, and be creative and use your curiosity. It will serve you well.

The biggest lesson I learned? Sometimes your tax dollars do work for you.