[TowerTalk] Looking for typical size attic info

[James Gordon Beattie Jr]

God bless you all who fell into an HOA prior to becoming a ham or reactivating a ham interest.  And God bless those who need their amentities and access to facilities that they afford for medical reasons needed by members of your households.
What confounds me is everyone else.

Growing up, I lived in a New York City apartment and had struggles with a simple receiving antenna.  Then in New Jersey, I lived across the street from a garden apartment complex with a defective master antenna system that caused me grief when the realtor-agent tried to use the code officials to bully me.  Then later, I had some neighbors in another town who felt it important to (unsuccessfully) rid the neighborhood of my ham antenna.

So when it came time to move to Florida, both my wife and I wanted no part of an HOA or an overreaching governing body.  For pete's sake, look at your deeds, the local ordinances and state and regional land use laws and regulations before buying property.

Here, it's my land and I keep my radio antennas out of the road, so things are good.

73,
J. Gordon "Gordie" Beattie, Jr., W2TTT
201.314.6964
W2TTT at ATT.NET
Gordon.BeattieJr at VIAVISolutions.com


Get On The Air!

________________________________
From: TowerTalk <towertalk-bounces at contesting.com> on behalf of Lux, Jim <jim at luxfamily.com>
Sent: Monday, February 13, 2023 11:45:06 AM
To: towertalk at contesting.com <towertalk at contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Looking for typical size attic info

On 2/13/23 6:29 AM, Chuck Dietz wrote:
> I understand many (all?) of the newer houses have insulation with aluminum
> foil backing inside the roof. My friends who have HOA restrictions, put
> antennas on their wood fences. Nowadays with modes like FT8, their stations
> can be surprisingly effective.

My attic (which has no real clear space, because of roof trusses, but
which is representative of other attics in SoCal, some of which are
"walkable" - the insulation is on the "floor" of the attic, directly
above the living space.  In a former house, which had an unfinished 2nd
floor, all the insulation was below, and when we finished it, we
insulated the walls and the ceiling rafters before putting up the drywall.

That said, antennas outdoors are a lot easier to fix, tend to have less
interactions with wiring and appliances inside (RFI, etc.) and, of some
concern, if the HV at the ends starts a fire, it's not hidden in your
attic.  I had a dipole in my (truss and HVAC duct filled) attic, and it
was terrible in terms of tuning (all kinds of weird resonances) and RFI
both directions was a problem - lots of noise on Rx, and when I Tx
(~100W) all kinds of things would malfunction in the house (like the
HVAC thermostat).   Putting the antenna on the "outside" of the roof
actually made it a lot better.  When the aggressor/victim distance
changes from 1 meter to 2 or 3, it makes a BIG difference.

I didn't have a way to evaluate it, but I'm going to guess the weird
impedance curves meant it interacted with a lot of other conductors, so
the pattern was probably full of lumps and bumps.


The other location other than fences, is eaves (assuming you don't have
a raingutter along that same eave).




>
> Chuck W5PR
>
> On Mon, Feb 13, 2023 at 8:19 AM Mpridesti via TowerTalk <
> towertalk at contesting.com> wrote:
>
>> Thanks Henry. Good suggestions!
>>
>> Certainly one challenge would be just building the antenna in close
>> quarters:)
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Mark, K1RX
>>
>>
>>> On Feb 13, 2023, at 9:16 AM, Henry Pollock - K4TMC <kilo4tmc at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> Mark,
>>>
>>> You might consider a 2-element Hexbeam.  A 20-10 Hexbeam has a turning
>>> radius around 10 to 12 ft which could fit in some attics.  To make it fit
>>> higher in tight attics, consider mounting it upside down, making it look
>>> like a normal umbrella.
>>>
>>> 73,
>>> Henry - K4TMC
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Mon, Feb 13, 2023 at 8:42 AM Mpridesti via TowerTalk <
>>>> towertalk at contesting.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Looking at the HOA/condo situation as I get older and wonder what are
>> the
>>>> typical size attics for putting, ideally, a small rotating Yagi for
>> 20-10
>>>> m. Key question is what the biggest turning radius one might get?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>>
>>>> Mark, K1RX
>>>>
>>>>
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