I wonder if a roof mounted flag pole / vertical antenna with wire radials would
be allowed ?
I don't live in an HOA community (thank goodness) but I use a roof mounted
vertical and have few RFI issues in my own home and none reported so far from
my near by neighbours.
--- On Mon, 11/24/08, Terry Conboy <n6ry@arrl.net> wrote:
From: Terry Conboy <n6ry@arrl.net>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Flagpole and Stealth Antenna
To: "WA6RKN" <WA6RKN@ARRL.net>
Cc: "Tower Talk" <towertalk@contesting.com>
Received: Monday, November 24, 2008, 7:57 PM
At 09:47 AM 2008-11-24, Joe WA6RKN wrote:
>I have a good friend that lives in a very ham radio repressive
>area.. You know, the homeowner association that controls how many
>plants you can have in your front yard and what kind they have to be?
>
>Well..his H.A. is that bad..however...they **DO** allow up to a 30
>foot flagpole.
>So...Are there any recommendations as to a good brand of flagpole
>that is 'all band vertical' friendly.
Joe,
I have used a Force12 flagpole vertical for several years now, which
has HOA approval. The stock F12 flagpole is 16 feet of 2" diameter
aluminum, painted white, but I got it with 3 extra sections and it
measures to be just over 26 feet. I'm sure you could get a fourth
section and have ~30 feet total. It has a sturdy fiberglass
reinforced base insulator. Force12 now sells matching coils for 40
and 80m, but a section of Airdux does the job for me.
I chose 26 feet because it is 3/4 wave on 10m, which isn't optimal,
but there is still a pretty large lobe of the elevation pattern at
low angles, so it works OK on 10m in practice. It's ~5/8 wave on 15m, etc.
Either a 26 foot or 30 foot vertical will work great on 40m. Mine
only needs a small series loading coil to resonate on 40m and I get
under 1.5:1 across the band and good signal reports with 40 radials,
each 50 feet long.
I have matched it on 80m, but the bandwidth is narrow and the ground
and loading coil losses exceed the radiation resistance, so the gain
will likely be under -4 dBi. Adding a drooping wire top hat will
increase the efficiency and bandwidth on 80m significantly, but that
may not be popular with the local CC&R "eagle-eyes". (With a
drooping hat with three nearly invisible #26 wires, each 50 feet
long, it is easy to resonate on 160m, too, and it's good for having
fun in 160m contests, but surely not competitive for DX.)
A 30 foot flagpole would work great for 40m and up (and maybe 80m)
with one of the outdoor remote tuning units (SGC, Icom, etc.). I'm
frugal and just use tapped coils for matching. The last time I
checked, the F12 flagpole was much cheaper than the DX Engineering or
Zero5 designs, but they are definitely battle ready! Here at sea
level in SoCal, there is NO ice and little wind, so the F12 does the
job just fine.
The real challenge will probably be placing his flagpole far enough
from the other homes to minimize RFI on TX and EMI on RX. I lucked
out and purchased a lot that backs up to a large open area owned by
the HOA, so I get some relief with my flagpole right in the center of
our back lot line. Errr, those wires under the ground cover
vegetation are for lightning suppression and are mandated by the
National Electrical Code ... and say, doesn't that flag look great!
Good luck to your friend.
73, Terry N6RY
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