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A Failed antenna experiment

January 1, 2024 by Bob Easton Leave a Comment

The Shark HamStick monoband antennas perform fairly well for me. Like all of my “backyard field day” antennas, the downside is that I need to set them up in the morning and bring them in at night. There’s all sorts of wildlife in that wetland behind us and I don’t need a gator or wild pig dragging away my stuff. Although it takes only a few minutes, how about something more permanent?

Idea! One of the hams around here uses a couple of tarheel screwdrivers attached to the structure at the back of his home. That structure has a large metal framework that he uses as a ground plane for the antennas. I don’t have that same sort of structure, but I do have a full surround of rain gutters and the downspouts run into the ground. Hmmmm, wouldn’t they be a good ground plane?

Nope, nada, no way José! As a feasibility test, I took a HamStick up to the gutter, using a WRC base mount, clamped it in place, set a grounding wire from the base to the gutter structure, and tuned it a bit. The best I could get was an SWR of 2.3:1. The tuner in the TR-45L is definitely not happy with that … and the grounded rain gutters are certainly not a ground plane.

Filed Under: antennas

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