[TowerTalk] Dorm room antenna?

[kb8nnu at yahoo.com]

Greg,

I have a simple antenna idea that worked for me while I was at school.  I use to love working 20 meters while I was at school but the antenna restrictions/apartment living drove me nuts.  Here's what I did to make it happen.  I fabricated a mounting system that utilized one of those clamp on style mobile antenna mounts that has a universal 3/8-24 stud on it and a so-239 on the bottom.  I clamped this onto my rail and was able to use the readily available ham sticks for each band.  I was also able to use the hustler mobile antennas with the mast and the resonator at the top.  When I operated at night, I would go out and clamp the antenna on and then drop a counterpoise wire down that had 1/2 oz fishing sinker on it to keep it straight below my antenna.  I also put a simple current choke in line to prevent RF from coming back in and to reassure me that I would have four inflated tires in the morning.

This worked great for me and I made a lot of psk contacts...

Good luck,

Dave
KB8NNU


________________________________
From: Greg Davis <n3zl.radio at gmail.com>
To: towertalk at contesting.com
Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2008 7:35:54 PM
Subject: [TowerTalk] Dorm room antenna?

Hello:

I have been attending Clemson since August now and haven't been on HF
since the start of the school year. Unfortunately, the university's
club station is currently not in working conditions. I finally decided
it is time to try to get on the air from my room now that I'm fully
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!

Any suggestions? Thanks!

73 de Greg N3ZL
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