Basement Antenna
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| Sep 7th 2013, 08:19 | |
N8TTXTotal Topics: 0 Total Posts: 0 |
I'd like some feedback on the setup that I am currently using. I am very surprised and happy with it, despite knowing that it shouldn't work as well as it does. Or should it? After cleaning out some space in the basement, I had access to an old desk that hasn't been used for awhile, so it became my ham shack, so to speak. Not owning a base station, I took my Yaesu FT-60R down there and hooked it to a Ladder-line J-pole that I bought off of ebay. I thought I would give it a try and see how it worked, knowing that with the rubber duck it was pretty much useless. My house faces north, and the desk is in the southwest corner of the basement. There is a concrete wall that divides the basement, west to east. My desk and HT are on the south side of this wall, with the antenna on the north side, with coax running through a gap by the first floor joists. The antenna is hanging from the ceiling with approximately 1' of the antenna above ground level, only a few inches from the west wall of the basement. It is also about 2' from the electric dryer. The main gas line coming into the house is within a foot also, along with some water lines along the floor joists above. We also have a septic system and that massive cast iron pipe leading outside is 4 feet from the antenna. This should give you a pretty good idea of the setup and surroundings. Now, your antenna is your radio, correct? Get it as high as possible. This shouldn't work. I am approximately 5.1 miles southwest of most of the repeaters in downtown Columbus and hit them all with full quieting at 5w. I also hit a repeater on the east side of town that is 14.8 miles away, again with full quieting. As much as I want to install a new antenna on the roof or move this one outside, I can't bring myself to do it because it seems to work so well for what I want it to do. I haven't tried to hit any repeaters west of me, but I plan to experiment with that and also on simplex next week. I'm looking for some feedback from those with far more knowledge than me about this setup and why it seems to work as well as it does. With the antenna in its current location, it works great. I did move it about 3 feet (closer to the west wall) and got rid of what little static I had. Has anyone else heard of anything similar that worked well? Everything that I've read says that this really shouldn't work as good as it does. Thanks in advance for your feedback. |
| Sep 7th 2013, 08:45 | |
N8TTXTotal Topics: 0 Total Posts: 0 |
Correction: the antenna technically is a Slim Jim J Pole, purchased from N9TAX on eBay (http://www.ebay.com/itm/221061461350). |
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