Help with mounting an antenna

[mbstone99]

Here's the deal, I have a magnetic mount scanner antenna outside on my patio. Unfortunately I live on the first floor of an apartment building and the patio railing is made out of wood. I was thinking of putting it on the bottom of the patio above us somehow by clamping it on there. But that may be a problem as out upstairs neighbours are not really nice people and have po'ed us off a few times that I had to complain to the management. Can anybody suggest a solution of how I can ground and mount this properly? Even if I could mount it to our balcony somehow would be great. No one in the complex seems to care that I have an antenna just sitting on the top of the ledge right now.

Matt

 

[miserytom]

maybe you could try sum type of " L " braket wide enough for the mag to sit on ?

 

[davebehee]

scanner ant

is the building a wood frame with brick? if the building is not metal, put your ant on your refigerator top or put it on a celing a/c vent upside down. don't know what freq or bands your monitering, you could make your own antennas..........dave

 

[N4JNW]

Tell ya what to do..

Find you a steel "L" bracket that the antenna will stick to. Now, grab you a coat hanger, and straighten it all. Cut it in half now.

Take your coat hanger peices, and either epoxy, JB weld, or to be best, have them welded to the bottom of the L bracket in a + shape. Now, stick your magnet antenna to the top.

Mount the bracket to your railing, or clamp it, or whatever you would like.

The coat hanger peices will act as a ground plane. This is essential to good antenna peformance. Granted, it will work decent without one, but adding one, should increase reception.. Even if it is a small one.

 

[DPD1]

Ideally it would help to have something DC grounded, and then you wouldn't need a ground plane. It would also be easier to hide. But if you have a metal dealer near you, stop in and see if they have any heavy gauge steel sheet scraps laying around that are maybe 18" square or so. Drill two small holes on the edge of one side, then the same on the other side... Then a larger hole for the cable in the semi middle. Spray paint the whole thing and use two pull ties through the small holes to clamp it to the top of the railing. If the railing is round, you'll have to make some little saddles out of something. Probably be easier just to get a different antenna though.

Dave
http://www.dpdproductions.com
- Custom Scanner, Aviation, MURS, GMRS, Marine & Ham Antennas -

 

[mfuller1950]

If you can't find a "L" bracket with ease go to your local sheet metal shop and have them make you an angle bracket large enough that the mag mount will sit comfortably enough on, like KG4LJF said about you will need to add elements in order to make a good ground plane, if the piece of metal is large enough you can go to the 4 corners and drill holes take some coat hangers or copper wire and wrap around screws that would fit into the four corner pieces and
screw them on this should do you a good job also, just another idea.

Hope this helps also.

Fuller

 

[mbstone99]

Antenna

Thanks guys that is a load of help.. I was thinking about an L bracket but didn't know how I was going to mount it on the railing. I never thought of using a coat hanger.. DOH. I will have to do some searching and give it a try.

Matt