Using Rain Gutter As An Antenna

Mine was a mfj travel tuner.

Using rain gutter as an antenna.

I ve been using a rain gutter antenna for over 3 years with great success no outside antennas allowed here and don t have any trees to hang an invisible wire i use a ldg auto tuner and mine loads up 80 10 mine is about 11ft vertical and then abt 25ft horizontal. Also less interference is created to neighbour s tv etc from cw than ssb. Rain gutter antennas amaze me too. 500 hz or narrower cw filter really takes away many noises compare to wider setting of ssb voice.

I did use rain gutter as antenna and water pipe as ground it worked great from 160 mtr to 10 mtr. The best smartuners to use for a rain gutter antenna are the sg 230 sg 231 or the sg 237. It is the rain gutter along the front of a house. It cost about 500 to have 40 feet of seamless rain gutter and two 20ft downspouts installed on the east side of my house.

A grc 109 will drive it directly without the tuner on 80 40 and 30 meters and it has yielded good results within. 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. Not long ago i was standing outside looking at my house wondering how best to disguise an antenna when it hit me. Mine was a mfj travel tuner.

It is 80 feet long and off center fed as a windom with a single wire lead in to a tuner. However i recommend cw for such installations. I use my downspout like a random wire antenna using a commercial transmatch. Pic courtesy of n6cc website.

First you have to use a tuner. First you have to use a tuner. All are waterproofed and have the tuning range to match most rain gutters. The smartuner should be mounted as close to the feed point of the rain gutter antenna as possible.

And weaker signal from such set up can be heard better in cw. The rain gutter antenna has a vertical component approximately 25 high and extends horizontally across the roof line for 35. Very simple and the system worked for me. I had great time.

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. A piece of 22 stranded hookup wire runs from the transmatch to the downspout and is attached with a sheet metal screw. Very simple and the system worked for me. Second article on the rain gutter antenna.