Good Afternoon Everyone
I've been in the planning process for quite some time on a UHF/VHF base/mobile station and antenna project. I am going to be installing a Diamond X50NA in my attic (HOA), routing the coaxial cable outside through the attic wall, down my siding (mostly concealed luckily) and into my basement. Actually, it will be two runs of LMR400. The extra coax line will be for a future HF rig option. I wanted to complete the routing inside my residence, but that ended up in abject failure (way too complex). I think I have a pretty solid plan in place but only want to do this once. Ha. I was curious if anyone who is very knowledge and experienced in similar projects would be willing to review my project with me. I know i'm not known by anyone in the club, so this may come across as a weird request, but i'd greatly appreciate any and all advice/help that could be offered. I'd buy lunch/dinner and adult beverages as compensation. haha. Thanks in advance!
Mike
Mike, just saw your post.
Here's a few random thoughts . . .
- if you go outside, give strong consideration to putting in a ground rod and running the feedline through lightening protection before coming back into the house.
- in the attic, try to keep the antenna(s) in free space and away from metal, wires, etc.
- I had a solar roof vent that was spewing out noise during the day, wound up pulling the plug on that, so lots of potential noise sources in the attic to consider
- note, you may be able to get away with a small fiberglass antenna like the Diamond X30 and paint it flat black and hang is off a roof vent. Then just run the coax as above.
- for HF, you may be able to do a mobile antenna then just run the coax around from the vehicle to your shack, the HOA cannot tell you not to put an antenna on your vehicle. With the sunspot cycle on the upswing these next few years, this could be a viable option.
If you have any questions, just send me an email at: N4SJW@ARRL.net or just give me a shout on the W0CFI repeater or 147.165 repeater.
John N4SJW
Base: Icom IC-7610/IC-9700; Ant OCF inverted V + Hustler 6BTV vertical, 6M OA-50 horizontal ant on 6M, OA-144 double stack on 2M, and OA-432 on UHF horizontal antennas. Mobile: ID-5100; Portables: Icom IC-51A and Motorola XPR-7550 HTs
Thanks for the reply John. Much appreciated. When you stated "if you go outside," were you referring to the decision to place the antenna itself outside, or routing the coaxial cable outside, from the attic and back into the house? If the latter, I was asking about this topic on QRZ. I was informed that a ground could "possibly" help with certain times of noise on HF, but if I don't have transmission lines or the like nearby, the effort may not be worth it. If my antenna is in the attic, and the house is hit my lighting, i'm probably going to have many more issues than the fried mobile radio i'm using as a base station. haha.
Would there be any other benefits for installing a ground line/lightning protection for an attic mounted antenna other than possible slight HF noise? Again, if there is a lightning strike with an antenna in the attic, I've got some serious back luck and would be SOL regardless.
Thanks in advance!
