Good thinking Gerald Muller K9GEMUSN DSC (SW) Retired [email protected] In a message dated 1/1/2022 1:35:30 PM Central Standard Time, [email protected] writes:
Rick, I put up a 80 M OFCD from my chimney. I put the Balun on top of a 10 foot fiberglass rod strapped to my chimney top cover. That gets it to about 32 feet high at the apex of the inverted vee. So far no complaints from the HOA Gestapo. While it is visible from the street, it is vey unobtrusive, and just looks like a 4” X 4” box mounted to my chimney cover. If the HOA asks I plan to tell them it is an atmospheric monitor to make sure the air quality is good. Ron KE4DRF Sent from Mail for Windows From: Michael Giannaccio via BVARC Sent: Saturday, January 1, 2022 11:52 AM To: BRAZOS VALLEY AMATEUR RADIO CLUB Cc: Michael Giannaccio; [email protected] Subject: Re: [BVARC] My first DX antenna : MFJ Ultra-Lite Off-Center Fed Dipole Antennas MFJ-2010 Hi Rick, Since I don’t have any personal experience with that particular antenna I can’t comment on the build quality. But I do have an OCF dipole with a 4:1 balun cut for the same bands in an HOA situation. Mine is at 25 feet and I’ve been extremely happy with its performance. My furthest SSB contact has been Bosnia on 20m. It’s no beam but it gets the job done! It’s been up for almost a year now and I’ve managed to avoid the HOAs attention. For mine I’m using black insulated wire with the balun hung from my 2 story chimney on a pulley and each leg of the dipole running to two trees. If you want to go super stealth I’d recommend building or purchasing a 4:1 balun and using some Davis RF poly stealth wire. It has a very high strength to diameter rating. https://www.davisrf.com/antenna-wire/polystealth.php If you feel that the MFJ is going to work for you I’d say go for it based on the reviews. If it ends up not suiting your home QTH, well, now you have a portable antenna! 73, Mike Giannaccio W5REZ On Jan 1, 2022, at 11:24 AM, Rick Wannall via BVARC <[email protected]> wrote: I acquired a Kenwood TS2000 through this forum a few months ago, and have been browsing around for a first antenna. There are almost too many resources for discussion and recommendation, a very nice problem to have. Based on a number of comments, including remarks by Dave Casler in his Youtube channel, I’ve landed on this: MFJ Ultra-Lite Off-Center Fed Dipole Antennas MFJ-2010 I’m not exactly sure yet how I’ll get it 35 feet up, but that’s a problem regardless of which antenna, unless I go with a tower. Living under an HOA in a gated compound, I prefer to see if I can get by with just the wire and make that “inconspicuous”. If anyone has a strong conviction that this is just the wrong thing to start with, I’d love to know why and what you would recommend instead. Keep in mind, this is not the only antenna I will buy that, just the first. Thanks, all. Rick Wannall KG5ITH ________________________________________________ Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club BVARC mailing list [email protected] http://mail.bvarc.org/mailman/listinfo/bvarc_bvarc.org Publicly available archives are available here: https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ ________________________________________________ Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club BVARC mailing list [email protected] http://mail.bvarc.org/mailman/listinfo/bvarc_bvarc.org Publicly available archives are available here: https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
________________________________________________ Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club BVARC mailing list [email protected] http://mail.bvarc.org/mailman/listinfo/bvarc_bvarc.org Publicly available archives are available here: https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
