Connect to the wire not the gutter.
Ham antenna hook for gutters.
The rain gutter antenna has a vertical component approximately 25 high and extends horizontally across the roof line for 35.
In fact the downspout has now become my main antenna.
Some words of caution are in order however if you plan to use your rainspout as an antenna.
Make sure your gutter and downspout are isolated from ground.
Rain gutter antennas work better if you use a continuous insulated wire in the gutter or along side it.
And weaker signal from such set up can be heard better in cw.
Stealth gutter antenna for ham radio or shortwave.
How do i physically connect the coax to the gutter.
I ve always fed gutter antennas from the bottom of a downspout using a coax pigtail one end with an so 239 uhf connector same as what s on the back of most ham cb radios center of the coax going to the gutter and braid going to a nearby grounding point of some kind either a ground rod worst case scenario radials better or groundrod with radials best option.
So i have my radio tuner coax running out the window to the gutter.
I did use rain gutter as antenna and water pipe as ground it worked great from 160 mtr to 10 mtr.
I live in an apartment so i think the best thing right now is to use my gutter but i have a few questions.
Make sure there is solid electrical continuity between the various sections of your downspout and gutter.
However i recommend cw for such installations.
So i just ran an appropriate length of 18 awg speaker wire inside the plastic downspout and horizontal section sealing the ends with waterproof silicone caulk and attached the antenna segment to the main wire of some rg 8 coax while i connected the coax ground braid to buried counterpoise wires.
Unlike gregg s gutter antenna the spout and long horizontal section were made from plastic.
I am a new ham and wish to mount a center fed g5rv dipole antenna under the eaves of my house where i have a 78 clear run available two stories above ground.
I was surprised that the gutter tuned up at a.
The problem is a metal rain gutter which runs parallel to the antenna about 3 feet to the side of it.
500 hz or narrower cw filter really takes away many noises compare to wider setting of ssb voice.
Do i just solder a wire onto the center pin on the coax and then to the gutter.
A couple of years ago i had written an article on the use of my rain gutter on my home as my hf antenna.
Second article on the rain gutter antenna.
Also less interference is created to neighbour s tv etc from cw than ssb.
I have wanted to try this for a while but never got around to it until today.
I did a quick coax run to the outside gutter and grounded the braided side then connected the feedline to an old mfj tuner.
