Rain Gutter Ham Antenna

I built variations of this antenna when i lived in several rental homes on hawaii island shortly after getting my novice class amateur radio license back in 1977.

Rain gutter ham antenna.

Attached the feed line to a downspout and coax shield to grounding. Having limited space for wire antennas elected to use one of the house rain gutters for low hf 40 80 160 the gutter is 67 long continuous aluminum. Trying to drive the gutter itself as an antenna is really asking for trouble. 500 hz or narrower cw filter really takes away many noises compare to wider setting of ssb voice.

A ham friend of mine recently asked me for the details of how i use my rain gutter and downspout as an antenna. The rain gutter is fairly new about 3 years old. Over a quarter wavelength for 40 meters and almost a half wave for 30 meters. And weaker signal from such set up can be heard better in cw.

Unlike gregg s gutter antenna the spout and long horizontal section were made from plastic. I looked at several possible solutions including one developed by my good ham friend friday lunch buddy stealth antenna compatriot long time dxer celebrated author and renowned physicist yardley beers wøjf who did all the complex mathematical calculations on my rain gutter antenna and offered me a coil design that could be added to the feedpoint in order for it to load on 160 meters. Rain gutter antennas amaze me too. Economics and efficiency are the main objectives.

A ham here in hawaii k0gvs ben has a hexagonal house and of course it has a rain gutter all the way around. The downspout has a vertical run of approximately 16 feet connecting the horizontal rain gutter which is about 16 feet long across the front of the house. Rain gutters are notorious for having poor electrical contacts at joints that act as diodes and cause severe tvi merely because an antenna is near them. Well he feeds it with a 12 foot peice of wire hooked to one of the down spouts and on 40 meters running 3 5 watts he is s9 5 here over 300 miles away.

Here s a rain gutter for ya. I originally did a write up on it in 1994. I have a couple of questions for anyone with expertise or experience in using a rain gutter as an antenna. Rain gutters are a compromise at best.

I did use rain gutter as antenna and water pipe as ground it worked great from 160 mtr to 10 mtr. Using the terms rain gutter and efficiency are a contridiction. I had great time. It is the rain gutter along the front of a house.

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. Including the feed wire into the shack the total length is in the neighborhood of 42 feet. That article found its way into several ham radio publications and newsletters.