Rain Gutter Antenna

Over a quarter wavelength for 40 meters and almost a half wave for 30 meters.

Rain gutter antenna.

Connect to the wire not the gutter. Rain gutter which is about 16 feet long across the front of the house. The feed to the rain gutter is barely visible in these photos as well as the braided connection to the radials. The rain gutter antenna has a vertical component approximately 25 high and extends horizontally across the roof line for 35.

This all aluminum gutter is fed with coax with an unterminated shield at this end shield connected to radio ground at the other to reduce nearby computer hash from inside the house. However i recommend cw for such installations. And weaker signal from such set up can be heard better in cw. On the sgc website there is a reprint of this article.

Low profile antenna for shortwave listening the rain gutter and downspout on the back porch were tried as a random length antenna. Also less interference is created to neighbour s tv etc from cw than ssb. The house is made of brick so the entire system is isolated from ground. The rain gutter antenna has a vertical component approximately 25 high and extends horizontally across the roof line for 35.

I did use rain gutter as antenna and water pipe as ground it worked great from 160 mtr to 10 mtr. 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. This gutter antenna is connected via an upper roof level downspout where no personal contact is possible. The results have been surprisingly good for shortwave listening using the crane ccradioswshortwave receiver.

I had great time. During wet weather this type of antenna will usually perform very poorly. The wood the gutter is mounted to should be dry and of good quality. Rain gutter hf antenna n6cc com above.

Rain gutter antennas pic courtesy of n6cc website by grey wolf i got this idea about writing about my antenna because i had one once in the condo that worked very well down to about 40 meters. This configuration has also. Including the feed wire into the shack the total length is in the neighborhood of 42 feet. Mine was a mfj travel tuner.

500 hz or narrower cw filter really takes away many noises compare to wider setting of ssb voice. Second article on the rain gutter antenna a couple of years ago i had written an article on the use of my rain gutter on my home as my hf antenna. Rain gutter antennas work better if you use a continuous insulated wire in the gutter or along side it.