Amateur Radio

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A Lemmy Community to share links about and for amateur (ham) radio to advance the technology, and promote communication and international goodwill. This community IS NOT for CB, GMRS, MURS, FRS, etc topics unless they are related to ham radio in some way.

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Antenna for ground floor apartment (self.amateur_radio)

submitted 1 year ago by lhamil64 to c/[email protected]

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Another post on here inspired me to ask about this. I recently got my license (General) and am thinking of how to get an antenna setup for HF. The issue is that I live in an apartment on the ground floor. I do have a patio that's about 10'x5' with the "ceiling" (the bottom of the unit above me) at about 7-8 ft.

What I'm tentatively thinking is that I have just about enough room to fit a 10m dipole around the inner edge of the patio roof, although it'd have to bend around the corners. Would that have any shot at working? It would be fairly low. I'm also a little concerned about MPE, since it would be right under my neighbors balcony.

I could also set something up inside but that doesn't seem ideal either.

Any other options I should consider? It would be nice to get on lower bands too but I suspect that won't happen, at least at my apartment.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

if you made a loop around circumference of your ceiling, how long would it be? if it's less than 20m, go with magloop

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

magloops can easily develop a few kV on the capacitor side, so keep your distances

[–] lhamil64 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You mean inside? It looks like my living room/kitchen area has a circumference of about 21m.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That gets you 20m and 10m, maybe other bands (with tuner or different sizes of loops) i'd go with magloop

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Do not expect any ground floor antenna to work well.

Consider going portable or mobile instead.