{"id":122,"date":"2024-01-01T21:46:42","date_gmt":"2024-01-01T21:46:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bob-easton.com\/n4ree\/?p=122"},"modified":"2024-01-01T22:24:44","modified_gmt":"2024-01-01T22:24:44","slug":"a-failed-antenna-experiment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bob-easton.com\/n4ree\/2024\/01\/01\/a-failed-antenna-experiment\/","title":{"rendered":"A Failed antenna experiment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Shark HamStick<\/a> 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? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nope, nada, no way Jos\u00e9! 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-122","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-antennas","7":"entry"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Bob Easton","author_link":"https:\/\/www.bob-easton.com\/n4ree\/author\/n4ree\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bob-easton.com\/n4ree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bob-easton.com\/n4ree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bob-easton.com\/n4ree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bob-easton.com\/n4ree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bob-easton.com\/n4ree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bob-easton.com\/n4ree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125,"href":"https:\/\/www.bob-easton.com\/n4ree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions\/125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bob-easton.com\/n4ree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bob-easton.com\/n4ree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bob-easton.com\/n4ree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}