Attic Antenna

[L Cee]

My 40M dipole has ended up on the ground once again. This happens usually once yearly. I am thinking about stringing it up in my unfinnished attic. Does anyone have any experience with attic antennas? I guess I could just try it and see, but I thought I'd ask?

L Cee

[mapleleaf]

L-Cee,

Charlie aka w8wca, who can often be found in #pirateradio, has a whole antenna farm in his attic. He would be a good source of info.

Cheers!

[Pigmeat]

I've got about 80 feet of wire strung around mine. I wouldn't think it would be worth a crap for transmitting,but for listening to pirates it's dandy.

[John Poet]

I used just a random wire down the peak of my attic, when I first got into this.

The noise was terrible; only pirate I could get was WHYP... but that of course was not a balanced antenna with a coax lead, so I guess the noise would be higher.  No matter what, any antenna inside an attic is going to be a compromise... much better to be outside in the clear.

On the other hand, on the transmitting side, I once tied both sides of my 90m dipole together and ran it as a "single wire T" into a tuner, for 1710 kHz, effectively making the 35 ft of coax in the attic into the first part of the antenna.  The greater part of the antenna was outside, but the first part was along the peak of the attic.  I was logged (unid) with "strong signal" some 460 miles away in Pennsylvania, "blowing away Lubavicher at times".  Ground consisted of some buried radials , ground rods, and the house's furnace duct system.

That system seemed to work better than a triangular dipole setup for 1710, but hung way too low for the frequency.

Gonna have to try that again, one of these days...

John Poet

[W8WCA]

I have a number of attic antenna's.

2 things I do have going for them- the ONLY AC line in attic is one to garage door opener and it ws easy to stay clear of, And I ran the lines down inside the wall of my radio-computer room away from power lines in the wall.

I have 3 Dipoles all fed with Coax and they do ok - they are a bit quieter than the Long Wires, but not as sensitive.
3 long wires - they are all between 90 and 110 ft long and the wires run straight down the wall and to radios.
(3 Discones, 1 Yagi and an ARA60 Active antenna also)
The ARA60 does a nice job but not as good as it would if it was roof mounted - they like to be mounted 8 ft above ANY surface to work best)

The long wires do a decent job - but not quite as good as a 68 ft Long wire I have outdoors. (It has plain wire feed also and does have too much noise as well - I need to make a few Baluns or buy a couple.

So - all in all you can have a decent attic antenna if you can stay clear of AC lines in your feeds.
You would be able to have them with less noise if you fed with Coax via a Balun

Cheers Charlie

[L Cee]

Thanks for all the information !!!   I think I will put a wire antenna of some sort in the attic (maybe a horizontal loop) and put the dipole back up outside and compare them (receive only)over a period of time.
I have wanted to try a loop outside. I have large trees to hang it from.....but it would require a very long, buried coax run...and I just haven't been willing to invest the time and money into it. So...maybe I'll try one in the attic   

[Pigmeat]

BTW,I've got a little MFJ random wire tuner I use with mine.(Picked it up for 5 bucks at a hamfest.) Makes a difference as you can peak the signals on the wire.

[Fansome]

I had a 50' random wire in the attic when I lived in the SF Bay area, hooked into the MFJ random wire tuner, and from there to my DX-440. It worked well, although I almost never heard pirates, probably just due to my location. Utes and broadcast stations came in great, though. Unlike a lot of stuff MFJ makes, that tuner is pretty sturdy.

[L Cee]

I ended up just tacking up 100 feet of 16 guage speaker wire center fed with a Budwig Hye-Que Connector and coax through a MFJ 1045C Preslector. I already had all of these except for the wire, so I went with what I had.  It works, but no where near as good as the dipole which is back up outside about 35 feet above ground.....which I guess comes as no surprize