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Re: [TowerTalk] Dorm room antenna?

To: bill rubin <brubin2010@gmail.com>, Greg Davis <n3zl.radio@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Dorm room antenna?
From: Jim Lux <jimlux@earthlink.net>
Reply-to: Jim Lux <jimlux@earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:50:55 -0700 (GMT-07:00)
List-post: <towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
>From: bill rubin <brubin2010@gmail.com>
>Sent: Oct 27, 2008 7:50 AM
>To: Greg Davis <n3zl.radio@gmail.com>
>Cc: towertalk@contesting.com
>Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Dorm room antenna?
>
> Use the cold water pipe from the bathroom if you can for a ground.
>73 Bill

I don't know about Clemson, but at UCLA in the 70s, the bathroom was down the 
hall, so running a wire to it wouldn't be all that great.

And, anyway, if you hook up to the water pipe or the greenwire ground, you're 
just asking for RFI complaints (or your received signal will be full of RFI 
from others.. or both).

The restriction of no tuner makes life pretty complex. 

You might wander over to the HFPACK group on Yahoo.  Your problems are much 
like those faced by folks doing portable operations.

One approach is to do the "pair of mobile whips" scheme as a dipole. 
Another is the "mobile whip on the window ledge sticking out" working against 
an untuned counterpoise of a bunch of wires hanging down the outside the 
building or strung to your neighbor's room.

A wire suspended from an inexpensive collapsible fishing pole is another idea. 
You can adjust the wire length for tuning. Cabelas sells 20 foot "panfish 
poles" for <$20 that collapse to <4' in seconds. 

So, something like a wire hanging down the outside of the building, and another 
wire sticking straight out, perhaps with a bit hanging down off the end (for 
tuning) might work pretty well.  Watch out for problems with HV at the end of 
your hanging counterpoise.


Watch out for RF exposure limits!  This isn't a situation covered by the "safe 
harbor" tables for dipoles etc, in OET Bulletin 65.  You'll need to do some 
real analysis work to be legally compliant.


>
>On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 6:35 PM, Greg Davis <n3zl.radio@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hello:
>>
>> adjusted to college life. My room is on the third floor of the dorm,
>> so I have a bit of room to work with. At first I was thinking about
>> trying an end fed sloper to a tree about 30 feet diagonally out from
>> my window, but I am not sure how well that would work out since I
>> don't have anything to ground it to up here.
>>
>> I am wondering if anyone could give me any suggestions on an ultra
>> simple antenna (no matchboxes, etc. required hopefully - directly fed
>> with just a few feet of coax to the radio without a tuner would be
>> fantastic) that I could quickly deploy from out of my third floor
>> window, ideally end-fed. I would like to work 40M and 20M mainly. I
>> know that's a lot to ask!
>>

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