[TenTec] using amp to load rain gutter

[Mark Erbaugh]

>   I presently am in a restricted sub-division where a man's castle is not
the rule.  I get permission to plant shrubs.  My antenna is the rain
gutters.  I have 2 stories and I have the gutters in front connected to the
rear with 16 gauge stranded wire and at the high point of the gable, ladder
line splitting the loop going to a 4-1 balun just outside the second story
window.  there are two 22' down spouts and one 4' down spout.  I use a
ten-tec 540 HF rig and have worked into Europe and South America on CW
fairly good.  I can hear Crozet Island but can't compete in the pile-up.
>   Would there be a problem if I ran 500 Watts into the antenna?  I know
hams have used gutters many times but I am not certain what problems a
little power may cause.  I worked the contest but really got beat easily by
other stations.  When there was a lull, I would get contest dx here and
there.  I realize this is not ten-tec discussion but when I get moved I'll
be smoking on a real antenna.  Thanks,  David

The biggest problem I see is RF exposure to the inhabitants of the house.
When you run 500 watts you'll need to do more detailed RF safety evaluations
per the FCC rules.

The other problem is that you may experience RF related problems with other
items in the house. Since the gutter is not likely resonant on the ham
bands, it may generate more harmonics than would a 'proper' antenna.  I
remember when I lived in a condo, I discovered that I had a ham neighbor in
the next condo community (maybe 200 feet away) by copying his CW QSO on my
television.  He was running high power into a pair of hamsticks mounted as a
dipole in his attic and using a tuner to make up for the fact that he wasn't
transmitting on the frequency to which they were tuned (he didn't climb into
the attic when he switched from SSB to CW).

73,
Mark