Gentlemen,
Gentlemen,
I was lucky enough to find a talking house ATU unit on ebay about a year ago, I paid $125 for it on a "buy it now deal." No, I dont work on wall street, but prior to the purchase, I sold off some other things so I had some money at the time.
I am really dissapointed that not more of these antennas are not showing up on ebay or ham fests or what ever. There has to be some of them on the used market some place.
The antenna tuner box works really well and tunes nicely.
Range with the 102 inch whip with the box mounted on a backyard swing set. I ground the system to the steel frame of the patio type swing set, ( Tuner box is about six feet off the ground) I get a nice strong signal 1/4 mile away and you can contine to hear the signal over a mile away, but I doubt that anyone would notice it or take the time to listen to it at that distance.
So I wonder how many of these antenna units are out there?
I wish more of these would surface on the new/used market, because it is a very nice turn key system.
I cant even find them on the talking house website, but I didn't look that hard either, seems they want you to call them rather than them listing things.
The antenna dosen't perform any better than a properly made loading coil with ten foot copper pipe antenna, but its nice to just buy something and hook it up and have it work so good.
I dont leave the antenna up because I dont want to have it ruined by the weather, I dont know how strong the plastic case would hold up under heat and freezing, so I connect it up when I want a thrill, however I know thats a poor use of my "investment"Over all it acts as my reference antenna.
Has anyone seen more of these anywhere?
Radio Joe
I've been using the Talking House ATU for about two years. Got it on Ebay for about $100 without the whip. The whip from a local CB shop was $20.
I'm getting about the same range, good signal for a 1/4 mile and heard out about a mile.
If I would get busy and add a decent ground radial system I'm sure it would do much better.
Looks like there are at least two ATUs in exsistance ! for better range, just add a ground to the ground connection on the box, I use a nearby cold water pipe on the side of the house connected by alum ground wire. Any kind of ground will boost the output. Thanks for the response MRAM, good to know somebody else has an ATU device.
Radio Joe
I bought one at a thrift shop here in Dade City for $3. It works.
You just started a massive run on local thrift shops 🙂
And, I'll be leading the charge!
why are these ATU's so rare? THII's are litterally everywhere but not ATU's.
My guess would be price and the need for one as a Realtor. At a few hundred apiece and most only being needed for selling a house the external would be overkill. Remember original owners were not trying to do what we are.
On another note I got one on ebay for 10 bucks. Does way better than expected with the wire and not planning to use anything else for an antenna. I am planning on placing the unit outdoors in a weather proof enclosure and running the wire up a PVC pipe. Am getting a good 1.5 miles during the day. Thought about a kit but the price for this was perfect for my budget. I highly recommend this product just not at the new price. On a side note Talking House is now owned by another company that may be more friendly to people who did not directly purchase.
Well, if there are more of these ATUs at thrift shops guess ive been missing them.. but im sure some will end up there. The only bad thing I have to say about the ATU is out in the open, they will detune during rainy weather and you dont get the max output, single strenght will drop but pick up again when the rain stops and the outside of the box dries out. Other than that these are good devices, but a simple loading coil with taps will do just as good. I like mine because its simple to set up and tune. I dont like it for a perminate setup becasue of the rainy weather issue.
Using the Talking House ATU remote antenna, I have noticed changes in range due to rainy days. The tuner relies on adjusting slug tuned coils rather than a variable capacitor. I suspect the detuning has more to due with weather affecting the RF ground as detuning was more pronounced before radials were added.
But then again range varies with time of day, season of year and so on.
If mine was ground mounted it would lend itself to routine adjustment to compensate for those variables.
It would be nice if all the Talking House transmitter info was gathered into one thread, since this is the first talking house thread listed I'll post here.
Has anyone done much tinkering with Talking House mods and remote antennas, I've noticed lots of questions but not much good hard info to work with. But there are some really sharp members on these forums.
I have a TH5 mounted in the rafters in the garage, with a 3 meter 1/4" steel brake line run through the roof. When I use it as a basic antenna the unit calibrates OK, better than the 3 meter wire over 1600, but the range is only about an 1/8 mile.
I was wondering what results others have had with some of the various antenna builds out there on Talking House transmitters?
Is there a special reason to use copper tubing over steel like most of the whip antennas? Do non-ferrous antennas do better that ferrous ones?
I am not sure how or if the transmitter grounds to anything with the basic antenna, I tried a ground lead to the water pipe to the case but noticed no difference in range. A friend suggested I try connecting the natural gas line to the water pipe somewhere under the house since gas lines are only about 18" deep here and usually run along the drip lines of most homes and they would probably be better for radio than the water lines which are copper, plastic, cement, iron etc.
One more for now, has anyone tried using the ultra wide band line amps used to boost catv runs on LPAM units?
Talking house patent diagrams and some photos at, www.wwwrench.com/th5
I recall an electrician telling me that electric codes forbid grounding to gas pipes. I think the implication is that electricity could spark something.
Did some checking, your right you can't use a gas pipe for ground, but the gas system past the meter must be bonded to ground. I wondered because my hot water heater has a bonding jumper across the plastic connection pipe.
http://ecmweb.com/mag/electric_code_basics_20/
Bonding in general means bonding to earth ground. It looks to me like what it means is that gas pipe must be grounded, but independently of house ground systems, which makes perfect sense to me.
Check out your water heater ... I bet you'll find it's separately grounded ... bonded to a rod, probably through a wall or underneath ... but is not bonded to the house or building power ground grid.
At my church, I noticed several independent ground rods on the outside of the building. Turns out they were all from water heaters. The building has a power ground grid, but those independent rods are not connected to it.
Also, the heat exchangers, which are of course outside, also have independent power and their own ground system.
I wouldn't think connecting a transmitter's RF ground to either a water pipe or a gas pipe is a particularly good idea. For a long time now, most buildings use PVC pipe for water, and they are basically non-conductive. IOW, if you connect to a copper portion of a water pipe, chances are good that it connects to a PVC pipe somewhere and so loses its ground value.
I think a transmitter with an independent RF ground should be connected to it's own ground system. How that applies to a TH system, I don't know ... mine has no independent RF ground connector.
TH TX has a RF ground? Where? How do you connect to it?
Here's another system:
http://www.kenneke.com/antennas.html
... only $69.95
Methinks it's basically the same thing as the TH ATU. And, for that matter, what I know of what's in the box of a Rangemaster: An RF network.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong here, but with the exception of a safety ground (for lightning), it may be all that's needed. Doesn't this explain why the TH with its ATU and the Rangemaster can work very well without ground radial systems?