It seems like just yesterday I was thinking about getting an antenna up in the trees at home …
Now, as the sun sets, I have one!
The day started sunny and cold, but after noon sunny was winning and the temperature got up to around 30. I had all the necessary stuff handy (I’ve been preparing for this for weeks so I would be ready when the time seemed right). I started off by grabbing my slingshot and a spool of 15# monofilament and carrying it out to the deck.
I tied the first small weight that came to hand (a 3/8″ steel nut) on the end of the line, then un-spooled about 50′ of it, laying it out along the deck. First try with the slingshot got tangled up in the rubber, but the second one sailed over an upper branch and slowly, slowly, slowly the weighted end came down to the ground.
Down at the base of the tree I untied the nut and attached the end of a spool of braided mason’s line. Back up to the deck, and I recovered the monofilament, pulling the mason’s line up through the tree and temporarily tying it off to the railing.
The next step was to go upstairs and drop a pre-cut 42′ length of electric-fence twine out the window. I attached the mason’s line to the PEX insulator and went back down to pull it up, tying it off with a few wraps around the trunk.
I insulated the bare conductor where it gets clamped in the window frame, and fed an 18′ counterpoise out the lower half of the window, down to the ground.
Moment of truth. BNC-to-binding-post adapter. Radio. Try tuning it all up.
Pretty narrow bandwidth, but 1:1 within that span.
I’m gonna call this a success!
All ready to go! It’s really just a field antenna installed at home, but good enough for now. Any antenna is better than no antenna at all!
Thanks for visiting driftlessqrp!
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