The Challenges From Being A Cliff Dweller

Note:  I have recently bought a MFJ-1786 Magnetic Loop Antenna – And it is doing great!
Stay tuned for a new page dedicated to this antenna and my results with it.

The following photos are of my current balcony-based antenna farmette as I play with different antennae and tuners. All of this is subject to change without notice…like sometime today or tomorrow. The question is: what is the best way to erect an HF antenna given the constraints of my QTH? Audience participation is requested below.

The basic ingredients for my antenna situation are:

• Antenna restrictions galore…as in NO antenna…so stealth is required to hide from the Condo’s CCR Police.

• Located on the 10th floor on the Island of Sand Key in Clearwater Beach, Florida…so I have the benefit of being 110 feet high. It’s like having a 110′ tower and tower work is as simple as opening the sliding glass door from my office and walking out on the balcony. Oh, it also has a GREAT view. The photo below is taken from the middle of my balcony of our sister building…so what you see is what they see and what my building and my balcony look like.

• The entire balcony is huge – exactly 40 feet long. Long enough for full sized, resonate dipoles on several bands – in a perfect world. It is also 6 feet wide with a floor to ceiling height of 9′.

• Located 100 yards from both the Gulf of Mexico AND Clearwater Bay…with all of that salt water, I should have a great ground plane effect (I hope.)

• 30′ run of feed line to the radio in the shack. So, losses are not a big concern. I use RG-8x for HF and LMR-195 for the VHF/UHF/Satellite Beam (even with this short a run, going from RG-58 to LMR-195 made a marked difference in loss improvement – especially for the satellites.) Feed line constraints include no windows…just sliding doors…so only way to get feed line to shack was to drill two small 3/8″ holes in lowest part of metal door frame. (This has to be done VERY carefully to keep from hitting the glass in the door and shattering it. FYI, most, but probably not all, sliding doors have the glass set 1/2″ into all parts of the frame. If you guess wrong, don’t blame me for a VERY expensive mistake.

• Metal, metal everywhere…and nary a clean radiation pattern to be had. I have a 4′ high metal railing; I have solid concrete ceiling and floor full of rebar; and all the exterior surface of the entire building is stucco…which uses a 2” x 2” square grid that is a 16 gauge welded wire mesh to support the stucco covering.

• With all this metal, my balcony is NOT a perfect world, so virtually no standard dipole seems to resonate. Hence, an antenna tuner is required for most all bands. The VHF/UHF Beam does resonate with less than 1.2 SWR on both bands.

So, given these basic conditions, the question is what is THE very best way for me to get on HF? Here are today’s photos of the balcony (note: with all of this in immediate flux, no attempt has yet been made to neaten things up!) Also, if you mouseover each photo, you will get more detail:

Current Antennae

• Various dipoles and other “AA5FR KindaSorta Dipole” (my term for antennae I am playing with that are kinda sorta like typical antennae that would work properly if they weren’t in the AA5FR Anomaly). So far, nothing is beating an “almost balanced” dipole made of 22 gauge enameled magnet wire attached to a balun and fed on the outside of the railing using plastic coat hangers for spacers. These made a big difference in both reception and transmitting.

  Even at 110′ in the air, I know the metal railing, and all the other metal surrounding me, is affecting my radiation pattern but the above appears to be the best approach I have come up with so far. Alas, even though I tried dipoles that were cut to frequency, the metal keeps all but 10 Meters and 6 Meters from resonating without a tuner…so, instead, I have one “AA5FR KindaSorta Dipole” for all bands. (The VHF/UHF Beam and the Dual Band J-Pole both resonate with less than 1.2 SWR across both bands.)

  If you have suggestions for a better approach that is still stealth, email me!

• Battery-operated LDG Z-11 Pro for the often-portable FT-857D with a LDG AT-200 Pro Autotuner for use with the usually stay-at-home FT-897D in the main shack here on Sand Key.

• Arrow II Satellite antenna for 2 M / 70 CM – both satellites and terrestrial. About $140 with diplexer. I have it camera tripod mounted with a camera tilt and swivel remote controlled gizmo for a $50 AZ-EL rotor. Stay tuned for a special page here dedicated to how I did it…and how you can do it too! Even though the Arrow II antenna is not circularly polarized and therefore has no switchable polarity, it offers the antenna-restricted ham a reasonable approach to the AMSAT birds. I was even able to work the LEOs with my 2.5 watt, 12 year old ICOM 24AT HT! I would love to see the Arrow folks design Version B of this antenna that was circularly polarized and switchable but based on my emails with them, they are not interested. By keeping the tripod cranked down to about 4′ tall, it still stays stealth to all but the ones in the sister building.

  If you are interested in seeing my antenna farmette or are interested in seeing The AA5FR El Cheapo AZ-EL Rotor System for AMSAT Birds click EZAZEL.
  

• Yaesu ATAS-120a used for both mobile and portable operations. I have gotten so many requests for info and photos on this antenna, I’ve created a separate page. Click ATAS to see!

• Arrow J-Pole – OSJ 146/440 for 2 M / 70 CM. Absolutely the most solidly built antenna I have ever used. Ever. Worked GREAT even from inside my condo with a low SWR on both bands in spite of no ground and lots of metal, metal everywhere. Right now, I have it mounted on my second floor balcony railing at our mountain top home. It seems to hit every repeater in the Gatlinburg / Knoxville area in spite of all the mountains surrounding us.

• Palstar ZM30 Antenna Analyzer – Very well built gizmo (definitely not Made From Junk) to help overcome the Anomaly. This is especially helpful with the Buddipole in the BuddiStick configuration when I was using this great portable antenna. Since I am a techno-weenie, my only complaint is that the documentation doesn’t teach me more about all the many other ways it can help me with all these antennae. However, for the basic functions, operation of the ZM30 is totally intuitive and works great. My only complaint is that, for the price, it only goes up to 30 MHz. Would be VERY useful if it covered 6, 2 and 70 cm.

Pop Quiz for the Reader

So that I can end up with the best out of current antenna farmette, and fully admitting that I am a techno-weenie when it comes to antenna theory (and a whole lot of other technical theories), the following is a pop quiz for the reader::

• What is the best way to run the invisible magnet wire given that I can’t drill holes in the cement walls, floor or ceiling?

• Does it make a difference if the wire is on the outside or inside of the metal railing?

• Does positioning the wires at different spots on the railing change anything?

• Are multiple wires really any better than just one wire since I am using an antenna tuner anyway in all cases?

• Is it better to run the wire parallel along the railing or is it better to go semi-inverted V?

• What difference does it make if I wrap the antenna wire around the railing vertical supports?

Suggestions Welcome!

Let me know what else YOU would do given these constraints – and, yes, I already know the best suggestion: margaritas on the balcony enjoying the sunset with my lovely wife!

73 / 72,

AA5FR