Copper Gutter Antenna

Some words of caution are in order however if you plan to use your rainspout as an antenna.

Copper gutter antenna.

It is the rain gutter along the front of a house. The wood the gutter is mounted to should be dry and of good quality. Worked europe easily with no local rfi that i know of hi. I originally did a write up on it in 1994.

Rain gutter antennas are a very old form of stealth antenna and can be very effective but there are some other things you must consider if you want to use your gutters. I ve always fed gutter antennas from the bottom of a downspout using a coax pigtail one end with an so 239 uhf connector same as what s on the back of most ham cb radios center of the coax going to the gutter and braid going to a nearby grounding point of some kind either a ground rod worst case scenario radials better or groundrod. Copper gutter model fercp6 1 52 1 52. So i just ran an appropriate length of 18 awg speaker wire inside the plastic downspout and horizontal section sealing the ends with waterproof silicone caulk and attached the antenna segment to the main wire of some rg 8 coax while i connected the.

Amerimax home products 6 in. That article found its way into several ham radio publications and newsletters. A ham friend of mine recently asked me for the details of how i use my rain gutter and downspout as an antenna. Make sure your gutter and downspout are isolated from ground.

K style copper gutter model k10cp6 112 89 112 89. Set your store to see local availability add to cart. Amerimax home products 6 in. It is 80 feet long and off center fed as a windom with a single wire lead in to a tuner.

Below is a photo of a simple effective and entirely covert hf antenna. Most of the original article is still relevant but i have. Make sure there is solid electrical continuity between the various sections of your downspout and gutter. I fed the gutter outside our window and laid a counterpoise on the apartment floor.

Unlike gregg s gutter antenna the spout and long horizontal section were made from plastic. During wet weather this type of antenna will usually perform very poorly. K style copper ferrule for 6 in.