Thanks for the kind comments, Kevin. I think that special electron cloud in the F Layer that hovered over Virginia, bouncing signals between us, must have followed me down to North Carolina!
What really pleases me is that my stealth antenna seems to be working FB. So for those who may get trapped by restrictive covenants, the moral of the story is, don't despair. For anyone who may be interested, here's what I've done: First I tried loading the aluminum ridge vent. That didn't work very well. So I hired a roofer to rip it off and replace it with plastic. Then I ran a wire along the peak of the attic, total length about 36 ft. Then I ran 40 ft of very skinny, just about invisible, wire from the end of the roof to the peak of the garage roof. Attic wire is about 30ft above ground, and the end of the wire by the garage about 20 ft up. I have an ATU mounted in the attic, off-center feeding the 76ft of wire (28 / 48). Ferrite bead choke at the coax input to the ATU. The thing won't match on 10m but does on all other bands 80 thru 12, WARC included. (one of these days I'll string a 10m dipole in another part of the attic) On a few bands It'll only get to 1.8 or 2 : 1 SWR, so on those bands I use the ATU in the KX-1 (or other rig) to keep the finals happy. So, if the landlord or the homeowners association gestapo won't OK a big outdoor antenna, be not discouraged! 73 Ray K2HYD _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
