----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Phil Scovell" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <BLIND-HAMS@LISTSERNow There's A _True Ham_ You _Don't Want To _Take 
_Lightly!V.ICORS.ORG>
Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2009 8:52 PM
Subject: Bulb Indoor Antenna


>     As a teenager in Omaha, my ham shack was in my room in the
> basement.  I had a Drake TR4 and a TH3 junior 3 element tri bander
> on an 8 foot tripod on the roof.  The beam was at about 28 feet.
> My 80 and 40 meter dipoles hung off center of that tri pod, with
> one end hanging in a tree in the front yard that I often climbed
> trying to get it as high as possible, and the other end to a
> telephone pole my uncle bought, it was about 30 feet, and
> installed at the opposite end of the property.  This was back in
> the day you could by used telephone poles for 5 or 10 dollars.  A
> few years ago, my mother in law passed away, and my wife
> inherited part of their farm which was sold to a local farmer.
> So, this was when I bought some bigger antennas.  I had a couple
> of ideas of buying telephone poles that were 60 to 65 feet above
> the ground to install either 4 verticals, or flat topped dipoles
> between them in two directions in order to phase.  I spent days
> hunting for telephone poles.  I'm getting side tracked from my
> story.  Anyhow, the utility company, who is in charge of replacing
> telephone poles, sells them to the highest bidder and gave me a
> phone number of the guy who purchased the most surplus.  I called
> him.  He had a crane outfit.  He said all the poles the utility
> and phone company sold him were 30 to 35 feet due to cars and
> truck crashing into them and sheering them off at the base, or
> just the utility company sawing them off at the base.  I told him
> I need 60 feet above ground minimum.  He said the longest he
> could get was 50 footers and that was before they were installed.
> You put a good 10 percent below ground I was told based upon only
> light weight wires and cables being hung from them so triple that
> for big, or heavier, stuff.  I asked him if he could, or if
> anybody could, buy telephone poles out right from the utility
> company or from any place around Denver.  He said the utility
> company refused to sell them direct, or new, so I scratched that
> idea.  I was bumbed because I new a guy in the south on 80 meters
> who had a pair of 120 foot telephone poles installed by his
> utility company and he had 80 meter loops on them that were
> phased and a friend in South Dakota learned his power company
> would install 80 foot telephone poles for 60 dollars with 20 foot
> below ground.  By the way, just for the fun of it, I asked this
> crane operator how much, if I bought poles from him, he would
> charge to install them.  A thousand dollars for all four poles he
> said.  This was back in about 19 92 or so.  However, back in my
> teen days, as I started to say, I did something better.  I had
> maybe 50 feet of RG58 coax rolled up and laying on the floor.
> Remember, this is in the basement.  I wired a 100 watt light bulb
> on to one end of the coax and a PL259 coax connector on to the
> other end.  I did not, I repeat, I did not unroll the coil of coax
> before plugging the light bulb in.  I was listening at about
> midnight to a couple of my friends talking on the Nebraska side
> band net frequency on 39 82 as I worked on my experimental
> antenna.  Once I was finished, I tuned the TR4 and since I was
> using an external receiver to monitor my side band signal anyway,
> I spoke into the microphone a couple of test transmissions right
> on my friends frequency as they talked.  A guy in Lincoln,
> Nebraska, 65 miles west of Omaha where I was, immediately said,
> "Whose that?"  I said, "Bill?  You mean you can hear me?"  He said
> yes but I was week.  I made a few transmissions telling him what I
> was using and then signed off to connect my main 80 meter inverted
> vee so I could talk to them.  I felt the light bulb, or what was
> left of it.  It was so hot, I couldn't hardly touch it.  I'm lucky
> I didn't burn the house down because while transmitting, I left
> the bulb laying on the carpeted basement floor of my room.  Cool
> indoor antenna, though.  Of course, I'm sterile now from all that
> RF floating around the shack.  I think I'll market this indoor antenna,
> complete with connector, bulb, 50 feet of coax, and RF protection 
> insurance
> to cover any bodily physical loss.
>
> Phil.
> [log in to unmask]
>
>