Indoor 6m antennas? Any ideas?

[VK2GOM]

G'day

I moved to Australia from the UK in Nov '07, and am starting to miss my huge garden I had back there with full size G5RV in a straight run... Here, I'm in a rented cookie-cutter 'unit' house with zero garden or outside land I can access. The 'shack' is in an upstairs spare bedroom, with an 'artificial' RF ground, and only indoor antennas are possible. I have no loft access either. The roof of the house is this metal colourbond stuff. I can't put any antenna outside the confines of the walls of the house as we have no garden or land surrounding the house.

I knocked up a full wave 6m delta loop from some OFC speaker cable, fed by a 75R coax balun, but things seem fairly noisy - the VK2RSY beacon just 55km from here is right down in the noise. I have heard a couple of VK4 stations during mild lift condx but worked nobody yet. Roll on Es...

You 'big boys' with lattice towers and stacked yagi's will probably be laughing at my situation ...but - any suggestions for simple wire antennas for 6m that will fit in your average rented unit-house bedroom would be appreciated until such time I can find a job and move to somewhere with a garden!

73 - Rob VK2GOM / G0MOH

[VK4WDM]

Hi Rob

I have one acre, so I feel sorry for you, but I have operated portable in some very tight locations, some ideas:

Can you open a window? If so, a helical whip perched at an angle on the window ledge will work ok. You could cover it with a piece of brown painted PCV and put a flag on the end (an OZ one of course) and the neighbours will think "how patriotic."

I have used a loop for 10 and 6m taped to window glass in a hotel - worked well.

Do you have a PCV vent pipe ("poo pipe") from your toilet? You can tape a vertical or vertical dipole on the outside of it. I know a ham who lives in a retirement village where antennas are not allowed. He has a helical whips for HF and VHF hidden down the inside of the poo pipe. During the day he uses them it in situ. At night he pulls a string and the antennas appear out the top to give him more height!

Best of luck! 73

Wayne VK4WDM

[VK2GOM]

HI Wayne

Thanks for the input. Loops are probably the way forward in as much as the more metal in the air the merrier; I just need to work out a reasonably efficient one.

The windows here slide open, but the outsides are fitted with fly screens, so I can't actually get to the window ledges outside. I can't really poke holes through the flyscreens either for coax, or come the next house inspection by the estate agents, there would be questions asked

I've also looked at the PAR Omniangle antenna from Dale in the USA; an omnidirectional horiztonally polarised kind of isosceles triangle. They get good reports on EHam, but of course sticking one up indoors might be a bit different.

I really need to experience a good 6m Es opening here to see what my current delta loop is capable of. Watching the logger intently!

73 - Rob VK2GOM

[VK4TU]

As a fellow ex-pat, I've been there and done that. A helpful tip shared by VK4WR is that the insect screen on the security window is held in place by a rubber tube. In one corner the 2 ends of the long piece of tube should meet. Grab hold of one end (lever it out gently with a screwdriver) and you can then fold the screen back. When you leave just put the screen back in place and push the tube back in. Good luck - and see you on 6.
Joe VK4TU/GJ0NYG

[VK2EM]

If you have aluminium windows, you should measure the perimeter of each one. You may find that a window forms the basis of a single element quad. Feed it in one corner like any quad, after checking that there is continuity all around the frame. 2 very small self-tappers will make the connections, and paint the holes with the appropriate coloured Texta pen when you remove the screws, to disguise the holes.Old copies of the ARRL handbook had construction articles of VHF and UHF Transmatches. (My 1976 copy does).
If you have a balcony, you could do what I have done. I bought an old tripod, which used to have disco lights on it, for $2 at a garage sale, and it is standing on the balcony, with 5 elements for 2, 7 elements for 70, and a short multiband vertical mounted on the top. I am in the process of putting a relay switching system at the antennas, switched by my FT-817, all switched by DC on the coax (I hope).
The coax is another story. I only have space for RG-58, and it runs from our spare room in the groove where the carpet meets the walls, and then goes out to the balcony through a small slot in the moulding of the aluminium sliding door. My lease says that I am not to "attach anything to anything", so I haven't. Everything is moveable.

73 Bruce VK2EM

[VK2GOM]

Thanks for the responses; some interesting suggestions to take on board.

If those flyscreens can indeed be bypassed in a corner, and I can get some coax out, I stand half a chance to sling a long (well, 30ft maybe) of wire out one dark evening. There is no balcony here either, so things are fairly limited. Unfortuantely, arriving in Australia head first into a rental shortage frenzy meant we couldn't exactly be choosy on where we set up home. I didn't choose to live in Penrith

I will also look into tuning up the window frame... When I was a student in Liverpool, UK, I had regular 80m QSO's back 'home' to Wales by tuning up the student bed frame and springs.

My other problem here is TVI - see message on other thread.

I think in due course a new QTH is in order!

73 - Rob VK2GOM

[VK1XX]

how about a quad
no balun required.
easy feed
vertical pol when in diamond config and fed from the corner
easy match with 75 ohm 1/4 wave of cable.
wideband
g