Carl Blare

Welcome me to Part15.us! I’ve been checking in for about a year after returning to LPAM Part 15, having been one of those with Allied & Knight kits in the ’50s. Now a webcaster, an AM signal in the house is perfect for monitoring the days programs. But I found that a 3-meter indoor antenna had very poor coverage outdoors, where I spend time gardening. Building an outdoor rig is a large construction project and it’s something for next year. In the meantime I found a solution which I’ll share.

I placed our SSTran3000 on a cut-to-size laminated board under the edge of my desk at a front window, ran 2.5ft. antenna wire up to and underneath the window, attached it to bottom of the aluminum storm-window frame with a self-tapping screw. The vertical size of the window frame is about 5ft. Outside on the front porch I used an existing screw at the top of the window, cleaned and treated with “DeoxIt,” and added 2.5ft. wire up to underside of porch-roof and secured it in an available crack where I wedged the tip of the wire.

Result: Strong coverage (1640KHz) everywhere inside the house, outdoors all the way to the street (100ft.), and here’s a magical part: the signal is equally strong in the backyard all the way to the mulch-pile (100+ft.). There must be a “skin-effect” where the signal wraps around the surface of the house (I made up that term). It seems the signal goes into phase with the front wall inside and out because reflection is not possible since antenna is part of the wall.

What could go wrong?