Attic dipole

[jquittum]

After kicking it around a few days, I decided on the Gain Master. I live in the suburbs with neighbors everywhere. A permenant 30 foot plus antenna would draw way too much attention and not be well received. I'm working on a tilt up mast that I can put up in the evening and maybe on weekends.
I'll get back here after I've had it up and report how it works.
Thanks for all the ideas and advice.

 

[Yagi]

attic antenna

Kind of late to this party, but for benefit of anyone else thinking of attic antennas. A big issue will possibly be a high noise level on receive.

I have a 10/20/40 meter dipole in my attic. (The house has asphalt shingles).

With the dipole connected to my R2000 it does a decent job with hearing hams on 40 meters. But on 10 meters I have a fairly high noise level from all of the various gadgets and appliances in the house.

The attic antenna is really a backup to my outdoor antennas that pick up much less noise.

For a low profile (stealthy) 10 meter antenna I had decent luck with a 102" whip on the roof. The whip was mounted with a mirror bracket and then attached to a metal vent pipe. It was on the back of the house and even though it extended above the peak of the roof was hard to see from the sidewalk in front of the house.

I had 3 tuned radials attached to the mirror bracket and the antenna tuned 10m with no issues. I found that this antenna worked much better for local contacts then any kind of horizontal dipole.

 

[TheSpaceMann]

Kind of late to this party, but for benefit of anyone else thinking of attic antennas. A big issue will possibly be a high noise level on receive.

I have a 10/20/40 meter dipole in my attic. (The house has asphalt shingles).

With the dipole connected to my R2000 it does a decent job with hearing hams on 40 meters. But on 10 meters I have a fairly high noise level from all of the various gadgets and appliances in the house.

The attic antenna is really a backup to my outdoor antennas that pick up much less noise.

For a low profile (stealthy) 10 meter antenna I had decent luck with a 102" whip on the roof. The whip was mounted with a mirror bracket and then attached to a metal vent pipe. It was on the back of the house and even though it extended above the peak of the roof was hard to see from the sidewalk in front of the house.

I had 3 tuned radials attached to the mirror bracket and the antenna tuned 10m with no issues. I found that this antenna worked much better for local contacts then any kind of horizontal dipole.

Some HOA hams solve the problem of attic antenna noise by simply using a different antenna to receive. I know one who strung a random wire through some outdoor bushes for receiving, and his noise levels dropped significantly!