Beacon Antenna

We hams seem to be difficult to please. Theres always something that needs adjusting or tweaking or modifying in some way to make way for a previous improvement. Its an unsatisfied position but a happy one for me at least. It is a key part of being a ham as far as I am concerned. Recently my noise magnet (sorry, long wire) that I use for beacon monitoring has been getting worse. Probably a function of a failing / failed balun, cat pee from next door neighbours cats or my son who is not quite old enough to undersatnd that daddy's ham radio gear is strictly off limits.

So, how to tinker with it. Ideally I would replace my vertical with a nice beam on a tall tower away from the house etc etc. But that isn't going to happen. So as the nights are drawing in and time in the garage is quite likely I'll be making a new antenna. The current flavour if for a multiband cobwebb (G3TPW) type antenna that obviously covers the beacon bands is the most likely candidate. However what I'd like to consider is if the antenna can fit in the loft and if it is better in there as opposed to the exposed atmosphere where signal quality may be slightly beeter as a result of it not being in the house.

Why the cobwebb? Well firstly the low tech and low cost and small-ish size necessary for me to built it in the loft. Secondly because it is a much lower noise antenna compared to the noise magnet and thirdly it is far less directional than the long wire. All in all it does seem to be a reasonable choice.

What were the other other contenders? Well the choice was narowed quite quicly due to space, visual impact and cost. I simply can't justify spending £250 on an antenna. Can't really go for a dipole or other long (straight) wire. So there needed to be a compromise. A magnetic loop means retuning for each band and whilst this could be electically achieved it meant adding in a level of complexity that I could not quite cope with just yet. Perhaps one for the future.

I found this document whilst googling that hopefully will help be build it. I'll begin a shopping list this weekend I think