Stealth Antenna

[electronicskip]

I live in a Planning sensitive borough where you basically need planning permission to do pretty much anything .
I'm looking for a Stealth Antenna to use to listen only to the Amateur bands 20m 40m etc .
Does anyone have any suggestions?
I cant erect anything on a roof as even TV aerials must be in the loft although most people tend to ignore this rule.

[G4YVM David]

Originally Posted by electronicskip

most people tend to ignore this rule.

There's your answer then. An external random wire of c66ft long, eaves to a post, trees, fence etc. Argue that a receiving aerial is a receiving aerial. Keep it till they come round. Then a dipole in the loft

David

[MrBungle]

Same trouble although the issues are neighbours! You can get a long way with a long wire as high up as you can get it. If you have a loft, run a large loopa round it. My main receive antenna is actually a bit of 7/0.2 wire that runs from my desk, around the living room across the curtain rail, out through the aperture on the top of the door, across the hall, into the back bedroom and tied around the curtain rail in there.

I have tuned this cruddy antenna up on 40m (2:1 match!) and actually got WSPR reports near the South Pole on two watts out. Transmit it's only good for WSPR and FT8 but on receive I can pull signals in clearly from anywhere.

I mostly run portable now when I want to do actually transmit.

[Mike. Watterson]

It's actually illegal to prevent regular TV aerials and regular satellite dishes.

However a wire along the length of the attic, an earth and optionally an aerial matching box, incorrectly called an ATU will do.
20m particularly will work on a regular whip aerial. Switch in two loading coils at radio end, one for 40m and one for 80m to aid tuning/matching.
I also have a CB base station whip, telescopic with thumb operated hose clips that extends to nearly 6m. Park car in layby away from noisy houses and clamp aerial to the towing loop. Car or fence wire as earth.

I used it a few times clamped to a balcony railing. I took out the base end CB matching transformer so my "auto ATU" would work. You need a manual "tuner" for a receive only setup. I have both kinds.

I've also used clothes line wire at only just above normal height.

[Nuvistor]

A search online provides many ideas, one web site for instance.
http://www.g4ilo.com/stealth.html

Again.
https://www.rsgbshop.org/acatalog/PD...nas_Sample.pdf

[brightsparkey]

As a point of note on planning restrictions in general - if a council removes your normal rights with a planning decision, then you are entitled to compensation for loss of enjoyment.

It's amazing how many objections dissolve rapidly when this is mentioned..

Kevin.

[Station X]

Apply for planning permission for ANYTHING and you can bet your bottom dollar that someone will object. If you apply for planning permission you can't later plead ignorance.

Just go ahead and erect your aerial, the worst thing that can happen is that the council will order you to take it down.

I put up a 150 foot long wire aerial supported by a 30 ft flag pole at the far end of the garden 14 years ago and there've been no comebacks.

From what I remember the planning regs only mention satellite dishes and yagi type broadcast reception aerials. Long wires get no mention, but I can remember a time when just about every house had one.

[Radio Wrangler]

Human psychology is such that once a control-freak planner suspects you're 'up to something' you can expect a far higher level of surveillance than those not on their radar. You may also wind up being held to tighter standards than are generally enforced in the rest of the area. I've known two radio amateurs who wound up as chairmen of their local planning committees and some of the tales they told...

Your first priority is not to get noticed at all.

Trees are good. You can hide vertical wires in them. Gutters and their drainpipes are another opportunity. You can run wire up the back side of fallpipes and along under gutters. Earths are underground and invisible, you can make up a bit for a so-so aerial by having a good ground.

For receiving, a thin wire out to a tree can be essentially invisible... unless someone is actively looking for it. Very thin wire is fine for receiving, you'll run into problems with it breaking before there's any performance degradation. You can use stainless steel for its better braiking strain in thin gauges.

Put up a flag pole, go out and salute the flag every morning and instantly accuse anyone criticising you of lack of patriotism! This works in America. They erect glassfibre... er, glassfiber flag poles with a vertical wire in them and a tuner box at the foot.

Another key is to get on well with your neighbours. I fix things for people, weld things back together etc and I seem to be treated as a local resource they wouldn't like to lose. It's quite good being a protected species

David

[Station X]

Steel cored washing line?

[bc312]

Magnetic Loop?

[dsergeant]

My house deeds say I cannot have aerials at the front of the house. It says nothing about aerials above it, ie on the roof... But the same deeds say my front hedge must be no higher than 3ft, a rule that everybody in the street has ignored for many years. Apart from my 2m collinear and a TV antenna on the chimney (which the local council accepts despite the deeds) all my amateur antennas are low profile and in the back garden. Nobody has ever complained. So provided you have some room just put up some modest antennas and wait to see if anybody notices.

Dave G3YMC

[TonyDuell]

Originally Posted by G4YVM David

There's your answer then. An external random wire of c66ft long, eaves to a post, trees, fence etc. Argue that a receiving aerial is a receiving aerial. Keep it till they come round. Then a dipole in the loft

David

Reminds me of a story (many years ago) about a couple of students at one of the older Cambridge colleges. Said college had a rule forbidding students from errecting radio receiving aerials outside their rooms. A pair of students ended up in rooms a suitable distance apart (by design, of course) and ran a dipole between their windows, across the courtyard. When they were challenged under said rule they pointed out that it was a _transmitting_ aerial (they had amateur licences, it was, indeed on an amateur band). And that the rule did not prohibit transmitting aerials.

Now we all know that a transmitting aerial receives as well, but non-technical people back then didn't...

[HamishBoxer]

I thought a long wire ,regardless of height does not need planning.

[high_vacuum_house]

Put up a long wire aerial then dangle a pair of trousers and some other washing in the middle of it. No one will ever know!!

[Station X]

Definitive information here:-

https://www.planningportal.co.uk/inf..._radio_antenna

[MrBungle]

There is an exception to the above according to the RSGB and that is a truly mobile antenna can be erected. Thus a fishing pole velcroed to a fence post and inverted V was present outside my property. It was taken down when my quite frankly bat excrement insane permanently stoned neighbour thought it was spying on her. Was less hassle than dealing with it.

I am downsizing all my stuff at the moment so I can move to another house where this isn’t a problem, preferably with the nearest neighbours driving distance away!

[crackle]

Council planning departments are cash strapped and understaffed.
These rules about TV aerials were introduced and put on the deeds to the Development Corporation houses here in Basildon, along with not erecting fences or walls around your front garden, not keeping chickens, and having no caravans or dilapidated vehicles in your garden. Everyone normally ignores them now as they are considered unreasonable and restrictive. But they can be used in extreme cases to enforce compliance if activities are very unreasonable.
If you are sensible about the size of the aerial in the garden and careful about unwanted interference I am sure you will be alright.
Mike

[electronicskip]

I did actually think of a retractable aerial on a tripod , but would rather use a permanent solution that I could keep up all the time ie: the long thin wire solution.

[HamishBoxer]

Well said Graham,though you do to be correct need planning for flag poles.

Having said that,I live in a village full of them.My answer to planning has now migrated to a small mobile trailer with mast on that goes to 35plus feet.

Had a mobile trailer for 25 years at the other cottage with a 60 foot tower and never any problems.

Not that you could move it without a Landrover,which I never had.Technically,the trailer should be moved now and then and at least this one I can manage.

Next door say they get interference from my aerial when I only go on once a month,she an aerial been near causes it!

Good subject and I am sure there will be many more thoughts.

Sat dishes a metre or more need planning when on the ground.

[davidw]

Have you got plastic guttering at a reasonable height?...lay a length of insulated wire in it and feed it down in (or behind) a convenient down pipe... there was a thread on this same subject some time ago.