Improvised Base Antenna

**Gordon Gekko** · 12-28-2013, 09:38 PM

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Yes that's Wilson 5k mag mount on an attic fan. Four wire radials were affixed to the metal fan base and trimmed for optimum swr. The optimum swr turned out to be 1:1 across all 40.

This getup is extremely stealthy as well

**222DBFL** · 12-29-2013, 01:03 AM

That's funny as I am running a wilson 5000 on a steel plate on top of my porch roof which is all aluminum. Have about 60-70ft of lmr400 to a barrel connector then lmr240 to the antenna. Swr readings are flat across all 40 as well. I have talked 170 miles locally from Daytona beach to west palm beach and also to canada on 38lsb. It works good for a small stealth type setup, next i am going to try and make a home brew dipole.

**222DBFL** · 12-29-2013, 01:07 AM

And by the way looks good. How does it tx/rx?? I like the radials. May have to try something like that. I forgot to mention that I pounded a 5/8" ground rod down and grounded the steel plate with some solid #12awg as well.

**Gordon Gekko** · 12-29-2013, 07:03 AM

Lol truthfully I can't answer how the tx is...there fuckin nobody on the air! For 3 days I couldn't get a radio check due to lack of operators.
Rx seems OK..caught a bunch of stupid skip coming in.
The radials were obviously key to tuning. Without them the swr was around 2.5 now its flat.
I am in south Florida and the local action is nill.

**222DBFL** · 12-29-2013, 07:53 AM

I spoke with operator 158 TAZ in the west palm beach area the other day on 38lsb from the Daytona beach area, are you working am only, as I found that 38lsb seems to be a good spot for locals and dx'ing as well these days in my own experience anyway. Keep trying, it will come, I made contact to canada as well, and this is with a uniden pc122xl, no amp. Hopefully you get some conditions soon and will be able to talk. And oh yeah, nobody on 19 would give you a radio check?? If so that really does suck. Anyway hope you make contact soon, maybe add a ground rod and ground the plate the radials are mounted to. Might help, might not, I know my swr readings went from 2.5 to near a 1.1 on all channels with adding the ground and some proper coax. Anyway as I said good luck and have some fun. God bless.

**Gordon Gekko** · 12-29-2013, 08:25 AM

Sad thing is that there was nobody on 19 to give a radio check. Its truly dead.
I did hear someone on 38lsb yesterday. He was talking to someone who I couldn't hear at all telling him the definition of "wetback"
The guy was booming in on my end but he didn't get back to me. I'm not sure if it was skip or not.

**Gordon Gekko** · 12-29-2013, 02:32 PM

Not much local action but DX has been abundant. I've talked all over the place this morning like nobody's business. So the long and short is...the antenna works.