WS6L home QTH antenna farm, at Roseville, CA...

There are good things and bad things about our QTH, from an Amateur Radio prospective. There are so many good going for our location, that I'll start with the few bad things: a) A quasi-legal antenna situation b) Nosey, but generally cooperative neighbors on one side of us. Good things include: a) Quarter acre of real estate b) Quiet from an RF standpoint, as all utilities are underground c) Lots of trees to hide semi-legal antennas d) The majority of neighbors have no antenna objections.

Photo: Can you spot the semi-legal antenna farm? Unless you know where to look, you'd never think a globe-hopping ham radio fanatic lives here, except for the fact that the truck is a dead giveaway. My daughter's car is parked in the driveway, and it sports nary a ham antenna... I'm still attempting to get her interested.

Our house, and the tract we live in, is only ten years old, so the trees that we've planted still have a lot of growing to do. Our neighbors to the east of us were good enough to plant a row of redwood trees, to shade their back yard and their patio from the afternoon sun, and the line of trees almost completely hides much of my antenna farm. That, along with a few strategically-planted trees and bushes in our yard, makes the WS6L antenna farm practically invisible, except from the nosey neighbors next door. But outside of a few raised eyebrows, and many questions, they haven't objected to my clandestine actions, and I hope to keep it that way be being a good neighbor, in other aspects!

Although the murky legal status of my QTH precludes towers, large phased arrays and the like, it hasn't stopped me from erecting a modest, yet effective, antenna farm. Speaking of such, allow me to tell you a bit about the WS6L antenna farm...

For operations on VHF/UHF, I utilize a Comet GP-3 base station antenna, mounted on the eves of the second story, above the patio. The base of the antenna is up 28 feet from the ground, not nearly at the peak of the roof, so it is difficult to see from the street, yet high enough to be effective. From my QTH in Roseville, CA, I can work repeaters as far south as the Modesto area, and north to Chico, which takes in most of the Sacramento Valley, and a portion of the Northern San Joaquin Valley. The Comet is fed by 80 feet of RG-213 coaxial cable, and the SWR measures to be about 1:2:1 on the 2-meter band. I rarely need to run more than 10 watts, as I can work, full-quieting, anything that I can hear. One of the local radio clubs, North Hills Radio Club (K6IS) holds a simplex net the first Tuesday of the month, and I've been able to work nearly a 80 mile radius on simplex, despite the elevation of my QTH is only 186 feet above sea level. That's it for my VHF/UHF antenna farm, except for the gain dual-bander antenna that I attach to my FT-817ND when I'm operating beer-portable from the patio.

Allow me to digress a little... two years ago, we had a patio cover installed to shade the patio, and to protect it from the weather, and it quickly became one of those how-did-we-live-without-it sort of things, especially in regards to ham radio. We live in a 2-story house, and it's high - real high - and before we installed the patio cover, I didn't feel comfortable working on antennas, clinging to an extension ladder that was placed against the stonewall back side of the house. With the advent of the patio cover, it's a simple matter of placing the extension ladder against the patio cover, climbing up the ladder, then placing an 8-foot step ladder on the patio cover, which allows me to reach nearly every part of the back side of the house. In the event that I need to get higher, I have a very capable and willing son-in-law who does not have a problem with heights, and is willing to help me any time I need assistance.

Shortly after we took ownership of the property, I erected a Gap Challenger vertical antenna in the back yard, hidden behind the house from the prying eyes of our neighbors. The Challenger served me well for several years, until our youngest daughter voiced her desire to get married in our back yard. The Challenger was planted where the wedding was to take place, my XYL put her foot down, and the Challenger had to be taken down and stored until after the wedding. Bad things sometimes happen to disassembled antennas, and to make a long story short, the Challenger was damaged beyond repair, and it entered antenna Heaven, after I took it on a one-way trip to a scrap metal dealer. So with the wedding in the history books, it was time to erect a new antenna to replace the fallen Challenger.

I got around to pondering my options. I really liked the Challenger, and had made hundreds of contacts with it, but the XYL had objected from the get-go to its looks, describing it as "ugly." I wasn't forbidden to erect another one, but it was frowned upon, so I decided to go a different route. I've always been a fan of loops, and after taking a look around the property, and doing a bit of pre-engineering work, I decided that I would erect a full-wave loop antenna for 75 meters, one of my favorite bands.

Since I'm a true low-band fanatic, I consider my loop antenna to be my main high frequency antenna, and it's the antenna that I use the most. My loop antenna is in the shape of a triangle, with the high point attached to the house, which makes the apex of it up in the air about 35 feet. OK, OK, that's not anywhere near a quarter wavelength for 75 meters, but keep in mind that the antenna must be quasi-stealthy, and reasonably hidden from the neighbors. It slopes down from the house, and partially encompasses the perimeter of the back yard. I drove a place a total of six 4x4" posts to support the lower portion of the antenna, so the lower portion is 10 feet off the ground, so nobody will get garroted by the wire. Speaking of wire, I'm using solid, 18 gauge copper wire; I have a big spool of it that I acquired some years ago. To feed the loop, I use 43 feet of 450 ohm ladder line, (43 feet isn't resonant with any Amateur Radio frequency) and a 4:1 balun to convert it to coaxial cable, in order to painlessly get it into the shack. I have a total of 270 feet of copper wire out there for the antenna. It's resonant at 3906 MHz, and using my antenna tuner, I can tune it up from 160 to 6 meters. It's not perfect, but its quiet, and if I can hear a station, I can usually work it, even when I'm using my QRP rig.

The loop antenna works especially well on 75, 60, 40 and 30 meters, which are my favorite bands.

Early in 2009, as sunspots began to appear, I started to become more active on the high bands, and I decided it was time to erect a high band antenna. The engineering requirements for the antenna were that it had to be stealthy, inexpensive, and I wanted a no-tune antenna for 20, 15 and 10 meters. After doing a bit of research, and a lot of soul-searching, I decided to erect a fan dipole antenna. The concept of the antenna was easy, but the engineering wasn't quite as easy...

Photo: Here's the antenna farm, attached to the back of the house, over the patio cover. The VHF/UHF Comet is pretty obvious, and if you follow the ladder line, you'll see where the loop antenna begins. The feedpoint of "Frantenna" can be seen to the left of the Comet, as the 20 meter section is the straight line in the center of the photo, and you can see the 15 and 10 meter legs droop down. This thing works!

The antenna would be attached to the house, which was easy, thanks to the patio cover. There is a tree in the back yard, but it wasn't strategically placed, and it really wasn't suitable for an antenna, as it likes to blow about in the breeze. The solution was to erect a 20 foot high pole, made out of a 4x4" and a 2x4". The pole is situated so it's hidden from the inquisitive neighbors by the tree, yet the tree had to be trimmed a bit to allow the wires to pass over it freely.

OK, basically it's a three-in-one dipole, with 20 meters on the top, 15 meters in the middle, sloping down at a 20 degree angle, and 10 meters on the bottom, sloped down at a 45 degree angle. The high point, at about 35 feet, is attached to the house, and the low point goes to the pole, at around 20 feet. The antenna is lined-up north to south, and favors the east and west to the broadside of it. It wasn't engineering on my part, its just the way things worked out. Since it's a dipole, it's fed with about 75 feet of RG-8x coaxial cable to get it into the shack. According to my antenna analyzer, its SWR is 1:4:1 or less across all portions of the 20, 15 and 10 meter bands. Using the antenna tuner, I can easily tune it up for 12 or 17 meters, although I seldom operate on those bands.

To help keep a low profile, I used fishing line to secure the 15 and 10 meter elements. I designed the antenna, with my neighbor, Fran, in mind, so in Fran's honor, I've given the fan dipole a name, Frantenna. It's named after Fran, as I designed it to be as inconspicuous as possible.

Photo: Looking at the back side of the house, from the far corner of the back yard, with one of the posts supporting the loop to the left, and others along the fence line to the right of the photo. The pole towards the left of the photo supports "Frantenna," and it's hidden from view by the birch tree to the left of it.

Does Frantenna work? You bet he does! Using my FT-817ND, running a mighty 5 watts, I've worked around the world, and worked every continent except Africa or Antarctica, and over 20 DX countries thus far in 2009. I haven't had the nerve to tell my neighbor that I named my antenna after him, but that might happen one of these days when we're enjoying a beer together.

Actually, I do have plans to invite my neighbor into my shack one of these days, so he can see what I do, and what my station is capable of. That way, I can act as an ambassador of ham radio good will. Who knows, maybe some day Fran will get interested in the fascinating hobby of Amateur Radio?

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