Apartment living

[highwayman1224]

Hey everyone. I live in a single floor apt complex & the front faces the office & main road with no back yard. I've got an R75 & have 2 inside antennas. One is copper wire strung along the top of my bedroom wall, approximately 40' in circumference. It's hooked into the longwire ant connector on the back of the receiver & does an ok job. The 2nd one I've got is a 25' long piece coax connected to the pl-259 on the back of the receiver. The other end is screwed into a 9:1 balun & then a 13' shielded copper wire is attached to the other end of the balun. I attached a small alligator clip to the other end of the 13' wire which I clipped to a metal coat hanger & have it hanging from the a/c vent. It actually has a quieter noise floor than the copper wire around the ceiling. Anyway, I've been drinking a few beers & thinking of a better antenna for my living arrangement & noticed something today. My a/c unit sits outside between my 2nd bedroom which is my radio room & my patio outside of my master bedroom. Walking around, I looked up at the roof & between the 2 rooms & behind the a/c unit is about a 2 foot rectangle gap in the roofline. I got an idea that pvc pipe is pretty cheap, around $3 for a 10' length at Home Depot. If I got 3 or 4 sections of it where I could easily couple them together to make a long mast & paint them flat black, it'd be virtually invisible at night. I figure a cheap tripod or something like it to hold it straight up would work. So, I guess my question is, if I connected a long run of copper wire from the top of the mast all the way down the side of it straight down, would that be any better than what I've got now? I'm guessing I would need to get a shorter length of coax & use a wire as long as the mast is tall for better reception? Anyway, it's just an idea I thought about today. Hope everyone has a good weekend.

[ka3jjz]

It certainly won't damage the R75 if it doesn't work out - anything you can get outside and away from the building (which is a big source of all sorts of noise) is going to help. How much is impossible to say.

However you might also want to take a look at this thread - which seems to describe something along the way of what you're planning...

Broomstick

HTH...Mike

[ridgescan]

+1 get it outside.
and my stock answer being another apartment dweller is-experiment set a day and get up there and see what works and see how stealth your deployment can get. I have been very fortunate here to have run a 100-footer for a while now. It helps that my system isn't an eyesore nor obtrusive.
I don't know if it makes much difference at HF, but I do know that PVC pipe, when agitated by wind and stuff, can build up electrostatic charges that may mean noise. My opinion is to just run a nice tight length of wire by itself. My wire is 50' north-south, 50' east-west-in a horizontal "L" configure. The halfway point where it bends is a wood dowel with electrical tape wrapped several times around the wood where the wire sets. That wire is a taught line all the way with just three anchor points; the feed end, that middle pole, and the far end where it ends with a proper insulator. Just pick a day and have fun.
A good RF ground is very important too. What possible ground points do you have there? List them here.

[highwayman1224]

Getting up on the roof is not going to be possible. As for grounding, this is where I'm a complete dunce & have no idea as to what that means or how to do it. All I've got out front is my a/C unit. No water pipes or anything. The grounding thing has always been something that I don't understand. Do I need to connect a ground to the back of my receiver, or ground the antenna? Ugh!

[highwayman1224]

Hmmmm, it seems like I'm making a little headway here. I moved the radio into my room, brought the coax, balun & wire outside & leaving the metal coat hanger attached, stretched it out to a tree branch using the hook on the hanger. Seems to be a little quieter & I'm picking up some good am dx right now. Shortwave is also coming in better from what I can tell. For now, I'm happy, but will still be playing with more ideas. I'm afraid if the neighbors see some lunatic slinging wires & coat hangers up into trees then the law might be coming around asking me questions! LOL!

[ridgescan]

How are you feeding the possible antenna? If you use a 50 ohm feed (coax) you could ground the coax shield outside to a cold water pipe or elecrical service conduit near the coax entrypoint to your place. Or you could ground it inside at the radio to a nearby cold water pipe (toilet nearby or cold water pipe under sink?) you can use a length of good well-briaded coax as a shielded ground lead for this to keep RF noise off that line to whatever ground you choose. I am speaking from my own experience. This is in no way a safety ground, it is only to control RF noise. Far as that PVC idea, I would rather use a wood dowel painted flat black.

[ridgescan]

Originally Posted by highwayman1224

Hmmmm, it seems like I'm making a little headway here. I moved the radio into my room, brought the coax, balun & wire outside & leaving the metal coat hanger attached, stretched it out to a tree branch using the hook on the hanger. Seems to be a little quieter & I'm picking up some good am dx right now. Shortwave is also coming in better from what I can tell. For now, I'm happy, but will still be playing with more ideas. I'm afraid if the neighbors see some lunatic slinging wires & coat hangers up into trees then the law might be coming around asking me questions! LOL!

Cool-getting it outside matters

[highwayman1224]

Originally Posted by ridgescan

How are you feeding the possible antenna? If you use a 50 ohm feed (coax) you could ground the coax shield outside to a cold water pipe or elecrical service conduit near the coax entrypoint to your place. Or you could ground it inside at the radio to a nearby cold water pipe (toilet nearby or cold water pipe under sink?) you can use a length of good well-briaded coax as a shielded ground lead for this to keep RF noise off that line to whatever ground you choose. I am speaking from my own experience. This is in no way a safety ground, it is only to control RF noise. Far as that PVC idea, I would rather use a wood dowel painted flat black.

Not sure I understand about how i'm feeding the antenna. I'm using a 13' piece of shielded 14 gauge copper wire as the antenna. I bought a 9:1 balun off ebay about a year ago that has a coax connector on one end to connect it to the radio & on the other end it's got a wing nut that secures the wire that I'm using for my antenna. As far as water pipes go, my bathroom is down the hall & not very convenient for running a ground wire to & out front is only the a/c unit. My receive is actually very quiet. It's amazing how much static a stupid cell phone charger or other battery charger produces till you figure out that is what's causing most of the noise. After I figured out where the static was coming from I unplugged them & all is well. I'm very happy with my setup now that it's all outside, I'm picking up way more signals & they're much clearer now.

[ridgescan]

ok you have a 50 ohm feed then via that balun. Your noise is quiet cause 13' of wire aint much. You will get the bigger signals from flamethrower transmitters but you'll need to run more wire to get any distant HF stuff.
You do sound like you have a quieter environment though outside the house. Try running longer wire once and see what your noise is like.
HF is tough when you don't have room for wire-the HF bands require at least 40' or so with that balun to get anything decent. Ya got a tree nearby you can run a "sloper" to? (from your window to the top of a tree) Sloper wires get nice reception.

[fleef]

by all means YES get antenna outside! it will make a nonsense noise reception to DXing and quiet.

Let me tell you what *I* did in an MDU (multiple dwelling unit) a condo, which has some pretty strict issues with antenna here. You mentioned roof is not an option... do you mean actually getting up on the roof yourself? I've thrown an antenna on a roof by tying a nut/bolt to end of random wire. My set up I have now is:

I have several RG6 lines into my 'unit' from the wall outlets. One used to go to a satellite system on roof 6 stories high. I stripped the coax end and have one wire from shield to GND and the "stinger" to the ANT IN to radio SDR. Guess where I found the best GND? To the landline telephone outlet faceplate screw. This I found was the "best" ground, as our electrical system is NOT grounded NOR is it shielded. Wow, talk about wideband noise. My current setup is a lot quieter than my out the window deal was however. I can't explain in few words how I have it set up but I try to keep my wiring as far "outside" as I can.

What I did was use 14g speaker wire to shielding on coax (that goes to the roof at least 60' up, coax connected to nothing- so entire line IS the antenna, not a LEAD)
stripped end of coax to expose shield and "stinger" and careful separation with black tape to keep ANT and GND separate, the lead to GND is only 2 1/2' to the faceplate. I USED to use an out the window antenna whip but this coax and ground deal works wayy better. Lots less noise. My issue now is EMI which is absolutely disgusting (next project is choke to help but I use battery powered alternate radio but SDR picks up ALL the AC line noise for now)

Someone mentioned the Broomstik antenna. This I assume is the old Arnie Coro design. It will NOT work hardly at all unless used with a TUNER.

Now I hear this "I am in an apartment.. I am in a rental.. I can't do this, I can't do that" to me living in a rental or 'unit' is fun challenge to see what kind of stealth antenna I can set up. You would be surprised at what you can do unless specifically told NOT to do something, try anything. I find most people say nothing to my face, even with odd sort of set ups. I have even had random wire lines on neighboring building's rooftop and the line was visible if one looked upward. No one said a thing, surprising. I assume onlookers thought it was merely part of the utilities lines perhaps. Trees are options if you can throw, so are roof tops if you have a good throwing arm or fishing pole with a weight on the end of your wire.

Good luck. Your set up sounds like it is working for you I just threw in my 2 cents. If you need a ground there are always counterpoise maybe 50'of random wire or try my telephone faceplate screw idea as phone utilities MUST have a good ground by law and for safety reasons (unlike my AC lines which do not as this crummy building built in 1962)

[highwayman1224]

Originally Posted by fleef

by all means YES get antenna outside! it will make a nonsense noise reception to DXing and quiet.

Let me tell you what *I* did in an MDU (multiple dwelling unit) a condo, which has some pretty strict issues with antenna here. You mentioned roof is not an option... do you mean actually getting up on the roof yourself? I've thrown an antenna on a roof by tying a nut/bolt to end of random wire. My set up I have now is:

I have several RG6 lines into my 'unit' from the wall outlets. One used to go to a satellite system on roof 6 stories high. I stripped the coax end and have one wire from shield to GND and the "stinger" to the ANT IN to radio SDR. Guess where I found the best GND? To the landline telephone outlet faceplate screw. This I found was the "best" ground, as our electrical system is NOT grounded NOR is it shielded. Wow, talk about wideband noise. My current setup is a lot quieter than my out the window deal was however. I can't explain in few words how I have it set up but I try to keep my wiring as far "outside" as I can.

What I did was use 14g speaker wire to shielding on coax (that goes to the roof at least 60' up, coax connected to nothing- so entire line IS the antenna, not a LEAD)
stripped end of coax to expose shield and "stinger" and careful separation with black tape to keep ANT and GND separate, the lead to GND is only 2 1/2' to the faceplate. I USED to use an out the window antenna whip but this coax and ground deal works wayy better. Lots less noise. My issue now is EMI which is absolutely disgusting (next project is choke to help but I use battery powered alternate radio but SDR picks up ALL the AC line noise for now)

Someone mentioned the Broomstik antenna. This I assume is the old Arnie Coro design. It will NOT work hardly at all unless used with a TUNER.

Now I hear this "I am in an apartment.. I am in a rental.. I can't do this, I can't do that" to me living in a rental or 'unit' is fun challenge to see what kind of stealth antenna I can set up. You would be surprised at what you can do unless specifically told NOT to do something, try anything. I find most people say nothing to my face, even with odd sort of set ups. I have even had random wire lines on neighboring building's rooftop and the line was visible if one looked upward. No one said a thing, surprising. I assume onlookers thought it was merely part of the utilities lines perhaps. Trees are options if you can throw, so are roof tops if you have a good throwing arm or fishing pole with a weight on the end of your wire.

Good luck. Your set up sounds like it is working for you I just threw in my 2 cents. If you need a ground there are always counterpoise maybe 50'of random wire or try my telephone faceplate screw idea as phone utilities MUST have a good ground by law and for safety reasons (unlike my AC lines which do not as this crummy building built in 1962)

LOL!! I was JUST thinking about tying an old socket from the toolbox onto the end of a wire & tossing it onto my roof!! Like I said, I live in a single story apartment so it won't be too high, but if it toss it at an angle, I could probably get some length on it. It's fun trying different things.

[highwayman1224]

Originally Posted by ridgescan

ok you have a 50 ohm feed then via that balun. Your noise is quiet cause 13' of wire aint much. You will get the bigger signals from flamethrower transmitters but you'll need to run more wire to get any distant HF stuff.
You do sound like you have a quieter environment though outside the house. Try running longer wire once and see what your noise is like.
HF is tough when you don't have room for wire-the HF bands require at least 40' or so with that balun to get anything decent. Ya got a tree nearby you can run a "sloper" to? (from your window to the top of a tree) Sloper wires get nice reception.

Not any tall tree's around me. I'm gonna try fleef's idea & toss a weighted wire up on the roof & hopefully get 40 feet or so up there.

[ridgescan]

Yup that'll work just as good as a tree there are a bunch of ways you can deploy-that's the fun of it! I hope you get a good run going then you can start logging up what you're hearing in here.

[fleef]

Originally Posted by highwayman1224

Not any tall tree's around me. I'm gonna try fleef's idea & toss a weighted wire up on the roof & hopefully get 40 feet or so up there.

yes that will work too, very well- try aiming it so the end is pointing north or south so you'll get East/West hitting it broadside. I've done the same, on a single story rental and surreptitiously too. Didn't hurt anyone having it up there so I made no mention of it to anyone Why Bother. If you say nothing and no one's the wiser no one will tell you that you "can't".

Now I've done the "just throw it over" and it took a good 3 or 4 good strong "throws" before I had it "just right". My only issue, personally, was getting over the thought of someone wondering what I was doing at the time.

[ab3a]

One trick that I've heard has been used with some success:

Use a thin gauge of wire, like #30 magnet wire. You can't see this stuff until you're right on top of it. Pay out whatever distance you think you might need, attach a small fishing weight to it, then shoot the magnet wire through the air at whatever support you're using with a sling shot. This is best done at night while nobody is looking. Just be sure to scout the area carefully by day, plan the shot, and avoid all aerial power lines.

Assuming your launch is successful, attach the random wire to your receiver (remember to strip the end of the magnet wire!), and away you go. Lengths from 50 to 200 feet work well. Above that length, well, it will work, but there are diminishing returns.

Note also that this wire is not just invisible to humans, but also birds. They have been known to fly in to antennas of this sort and break it, so don't leave it outside.

Alternatively, you can take your radio with you and go listen while camping, hiking, or just getting away from it all. I have a 16 year old Grundig YB-400 that has literally been around the world with me. It's not an exemplary receiver, but for a small portable, it's surprisingly capable.