Using Gutters As A Counterpoise

Built in gutters also called box or hidden gutters are actually a type of rain gutter and can replace the latter especially when the conspicuous appearance of the rain gutter is the main issue.

Using gutters as a counterpoise.

A piece of 22 stranded hookup wire runs from the transmatch to the downspout and is attached with a sheet metal screw. Rhe gutters don t work well as a radiator due to these water running pipes but they are a very good counterpoise to the single wire antenna. Counterpoise will improve your receive its the other side of the antenna. I might get away with a counterpoise wire running along the perimeter of the house.

I fed the gutter outside our window and laid a counterpoise on the apartment floor. Just a thought and another question. It was really resonant at 20 meters and higher. I think that using it as a counterpoise that close to your wire probably won t do anything useful for you.

Good luck getting an earth ground here in phoenix az. Worked europe easily with no local rfi that i know of hi. The downspout has a vertical run of approximately 16 feet connecting the horizontal rain gutter which is about 16 feet long across the front of the. That s what i m thinking.

Where would a counterpoise wire tie into my gutter antenna system at the gutter at the pass thru or at the antenna tuner. The whole length was close to 125 feet in an inverted u shaped. Box gutters are valley like troughs at the edges of roofs which are concealed in appearance and don t draw attention from the beauty of the house. I use my downspout like a random wire antenna using a commercial transmatch.

By the way with painted aluminum gutters you can have continuity issues at the junctions which could add to rfi woes if you are running more than qrp. The concrete foundation comes up about 3ft from the ground before the vinyl siding starts. I ran a open length of coax cable to the aluminum gutter and to a screw at the base no ground was used as this caused noise on the feed line. I need a ground system or counterpoise.

I made my first european contacts on 15 or 17 meters using the gutter antenna. As for myself i do have a house in a row with a so called stamp garden of 14 by 5 5 mtrs but i am using the other dimension of the garden the unlimmeted height of it hi hi.