Aluminum Siding

[BigIron2]

Could aluminum siding or gutters be used as an antenna?
I could run a wire outside and attach it to the siding with a small sheetmetal screw.

 

[JoeyC]

You can use your shoes as an antenna. The question is, how effective will it be at hearing the frequency range you are interested in?

In short, NO.

 

[BigIron2]

I've seen a few posts on this forum about using gutters so I thought I would ask. It would be for shortwave recieving.

 

[restonham]

It's probably better than nothing, but a 30 foot hunk of wire would be a lot better. Just toss it out a window if that's all you can manage.

 

[7designs]

More then likely that siding or gutter is grounded or has downspout so close to ground it may hurt you more then help.

 

[RIG]

Since the gutter is horizontal, would that be less effective as well?

 

[LtDoc]

Rain gutters have been used for antennas for quite a while. There are some 'catches' with that though. One of the 'catches' is that the gutter shouldn't be 'grounded', and then you have to supply a 'ground' for the antenna in most cases. Then there's making sure that there's good electrical contact between sections of that gutter (may not be all that 'long' otherwise). The same basic thingys apply to aluminum siding, no idea how you would go about 'isolating' a part of the siding, or if it would even be necessary.
All of the above applies to listening only, transmitting antennas are a whole different story. And, I doubt if anyone could give you a realistic idea of how 'well' the gutters or siding may work.
The part about throwing a wire out a window is more practical than you might think! I've done that with a 'modification', sort of, threw the thing over the roof, figured the height wouldn't hurt.
Wanna try it? Why not!
- 'Doc

 

[radioman2001]

For our HF Military field radios eons ago the prefered method for an antenna to keep a low profile was a piece of field phone wire thrown on the ground or in a tree. It sufficed, we weren't transmitting that far, usually less than 10 mi at 10watts. I believe the radios designator was a PRC-6. You did have to be careful when tuning to keep the power low or the radio would bite you with RF from the tuning dial.

 

[K9WG]

The risk of using gutters/siding for transmitting is the joints in the siding/gutters corrode. This creates a diode effect and can cause very bad harmonics when transmitting. I read an account of a Ham operator loading up a greenhouse and creating harmonics almost as strong as the fundamental. The cause was determined to be the joints in the greenhouse were electrically isolated with rust.