Rain Gutter Loop Antenna

It is 80 feet long and off center fed as a windom with a single wire lead in to a tuner.

Rain gutter loop antenna. It is the rain gutter along the front of a house. Over a quarter wavelength for 40 meters and almost a half wave for 30 meters. The rain gutter antenna has a vertical component approximately 25 high and extends horizontally across the roof line for 35. 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 best smartuners to use for a rain gutter antenna are the sg 230 sg 231 or the sg 237. The downspout has a vertical run of approximately 16 feet connecting the horizontal rain gutter which is about 16 feet long across the front of the house. Gutter end caps close off the ends of gutters keeping debris and water from flowing out at this point.

Unlike gregg s gutter antenna the spout and long horizontal section were made from plastic. I built variations of this antenna when i lived in several rental homes on hawaii island shortly after getting my novice class amateur radio license back in 1977. However i recommend cw for such installations. Maybe 8 feet of coax to my swan.

Classic rain gutter height loop elevated on standoffs stylized for emphasis to find out i challenged the rain gutter loop with eznec antenna modeling software. Also less interference is created to neighbour s tv etc from cw than ssb. I had great time. I didn t use the ground.

1 two loop heights 2 two house types and 3 several bands. This is the antenna i have been relegated to use for my hf operating. I did use rain gutter as antenna and water pipe as ground it worked great from 160 mtr to 10 mtr. Gutter hangers and gutter brackets allow gutters to attach to a house s eaves offering support and strength to the front edge.

Second article on the rain gutter antenna. Below is a photo of a simple effective and entirely covert hf antenna. 500 hz or narrower cw filter really takes away many noises compare to wider setting of ssb voice. Running two wires at each end of the house can turn this into a horizontal loop.

Including the feed wire into the shack the total length is in the neighborhood of 42 feet. Other pieces include elbows gutter extensions and gutter flashing. The complex went cable and i fed a length of coax through the old antenna hole in my bedroom to the rain gutter outside. This required best case and worst caswe models to encompass most house variables.