"Dwight Stewart" wrote in message hlink.net...
"Bert Craig" wrote:

My job is like that. The building is really well shielded
and I wanted to run an inconspicuous 30/40m SW+
QRP rig from my desk.


We took this apartment (paid for by the VA) to allow my wife to easily
attend school just down the street. Sadly, there is enough metal in this
building to build a few dozen Army tanks. Even worse, the apartment is
directly above the owner's apartment and he likes to spend a great amount of
time outdoors on the patios out back (the front is directly above the office
entrance). I've tried several homebrew internal antennas, but none of them
would allow me to consistently hit a repeater just a few miles away. We're
hoping that, once the owner gets used to us, he'll eventually allow a small
antenna. But, as it is now, the only way to talk on the radio at home is to
walk out onto the balcony (and the metal in the building even effects that).

Well, from the information you've provided, I can safely assume that
your apartment is at least on the second floor. (Unless your landlord
lives in the basement.) You can probably get away with operating at
night with a wire hung from the balcony with a tuner. 40m is hoppin'
at night and you certainly don't need much power to work distant
stations reliably. I fired up my 40m Small Wonders SW+ QRP rig for the
first time yesterday and promptly worked a chap in Rochester, NY. I
received a RST report of 459 with only 2.5 Watts, simply amazing! Of
course, these are just helpful suggestions...YMMV.

--
73 de Bert
WA2SI