ANTENTOP- 01- 2017 # 021

Stealth Antennas for Amateur Radio

Similarly, hams have loaded up aluminum rain gutters to use as antennas. While these can work in some last resort situations, they are not particularly effective either because the joints between the guttering can cause intermittent connection issues often resulting in causing TVI interference. Also, the fact these rain gutters surround the home, makes them susceptible by design to picking up local noise sources generated from inside the home which of course serves to degrade and limit reception abilities.

My proposed solutions are specifically intended to resolve these issues because we are not hiding anything at all and they are specifically designed to function as "antennas." In fact, instead of hiding them, we are just going to install these antennas in plain sight for everyone to see! The difference in these stealth antenna designs is in the fact we are using the art of camouflage and a little creativity to our distinct advantage.

Therefore to address the issue of operating a highly disguised and yet effective antenna design that are 100% camouflaged in plain sight, we need to become more creative in our approach. These top 10 stealth antenna designs I am proposing are cost effective to construct using readily available materials by both experienced and inexperienced hams alike, simple to understand in concept, creative in terms of ultimate stealth and yet achieve capable good performing antennas intended to achieve the desired objective.

Many will note these better performing stealth antenna designs can be configured for either vertical or horizontal operation or they can even serve to function as both! They also play very well in terms of multiple bands when used with an antenna tuner and some designs are exceptional performing antennas in terms of single band operation without the need of any tuner at all. Any of proposed stealth vertical antenna designs listed will realize better performance results after installing some buried ground radials around them. This can be achieved by using a good quality pizza cutter to cut a path for laying the ground radials just slightly below the ground surface. Doing this in moist soil after a good rainfall, will prove itself relatively easy to do. Installing ground radials will serve to improve your signal performance while at the same time, remaining stealth and completely out of sight.

Figure 1

Weather Vane

Credit Line for Figure 1:

http://sciencestockphotos.com/free/astronomy/slides

Here are KC8VWM's top 10 Ultra Stealth antenna designs....

1. Weather Instrument Antenna:

Another ground mounted vertical inside PVC pipe. The Weather Vane should be constructed out of plastic. Attach a cheap plastic thermometer and a fake homemade rain gauge to the side of the PVC for maximum effect. Alternatively if horizontal orientation is your preference, you can use "guy" wires to support the PVC "weather instrument pole." It is these so called supports that hold up the "weather instrument pole" that are used as the actual inverted V antenna. This way you will know exactly what the temperature of your antenna is at all times.

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