Brian Reay wrote:
I'm in the process of trying to help a local with an antenna problem. He
lives in a ground floor appartment and can't get a fixed outside antenna.

I'm thinking of something on the lines of the Buddistick and MFJ-1622,
although ideally a home made version and a hidden counterpoise run down to
the ground and tucked away. A small bracket would be fitted to the window
frame (or near to it) and the antenna would be removed when not in use. He
only runs QRP type power so EMI is probably not an issue.

Comments, other ideas, please?



Which bands are the most important to him?

If it is HF and if he is into CW or the digital modes, the old box-fan
looking magnetic mode antennas worked fairly well, considering. Nothing
would have to be outside for that to work well.

I operated for quite a few years from a ground floor apartment. CW and
the digital modes were by far the easiest on which to make numerous
contacts. Of course, this is obvious to anyone with a little bit of
experience, but, just in case, I thought I would mention it.

If your friend just has to talk on 75 phone, he would be better off
building a gorilla-strong mobile station in his car, assuming he has
one. No one can give you any serious crap about operating from the
vehicle. If they do, due to RFI, tell them that antennas make less
interference when elevated, so that the answer would be to give your
friend permission to run a random wire along the peak of the roof and to
then feed it with twin lead. Then help the other folks in the building
install filters (gratis - of course) and to have them call him if they
have problems. That's what I did and the manager eventually let me put a
centerfed dipole fed with twinlead on top of the roof. It worked great
and only cost me a few dollars for clamp-on ferrite toroids (Radio
Shack). Of course, I was running 100 watts or less during the evenings
when folks were watching TV on the apartment owned CATV system.

There are answers, you just have to be creative. Operating digital modes
or CW really does make this a much easier feat to accomplish.

Ed, NM2K