[Lowfer] Medfer Antenna.

[LEE BAHR]

 I need input.  I have a small legal AM transmitter kit I want to put on the
 hi end of the AM BC band.  I have a lake house in a small subdivision in
 the country.  the subdivision is a circle you can walk around in a matter
 of a few minutes.  My house is near the middle of all this.  I want to
 legally send out AM on the transmitter with subdivision news.  I would
 suspect the diameter of the circle is around 1200 to 1500 feet.

I have not built up the transmitter as yet but have built a loading coil
 on a 4 inch PVC pipe and made an antenna that looks like a HF ham mobile
 antenna.  (Base loaded).  It is just a little taller then 9 feet and has a
 top hat made up of 2 foot long welding rod on the top.   Rules say:
 antenna/ground wire/ and feedline less then 10 feet approx.  (Does the top
 hat count in the length)?

 I can mount the antenna with transmitter at it's base on the ground and
 put radials in the ground.  Would the radials count in the length
 calculated by the FCC?  I can also mount the antenna along my house ridge
 near aluminum gutters.  This would put the base up at around 18 foot.  I
 know hooking a ground up at this point would make the thing illegal.  I
 think hooking a ground  to the gutters would also make it illegal.

So it comes down to, do I put it up in the air with no ground radials or
 do I put it on the ground and can I have ground radials or just a ground
 stake and which system would cover the most territiry?

 I really want to be legal with this thing since it will be running all the
 time and the goal is to just cover the small 50 home subdivision.   (The
 area has very few AM stations which can be heard at this location).>

I could also build an antenna on a 10 or 11 inch diameter PVC pipe around 10
foot long and mount it on the ground with or without radials or ground stake
with xmtr at the antenna base based on what the FCC considers legal.  I
guess this would work better then my 4 inch loading coil with magnet wire.
The 10 inch diameter pipe could be wound with silver plated teflon covered
wire or plain covered stranded nbr 14 or 12  house wire.  Maybe my initial 4
inch dia coil is good enough to work no matter at what position I place it.

I'm just wanting to put up the best legal antenna for local coverage.

Lee, w0vt