[Lowfer] Medfer Antenna.

[Jim]

> If I installed the antenna at my aluminum rain gutters which
> are around 17 foot off the ground and then ran a ground wire 
> from the tranmitter to the rain gutters, would my ground
> length be the couple inches between the transmitter and the
> gutters or would I have to include the length of the gutters
> in my calculation?


15.218 (b) says, "The total length of the transmission line, antenna and 
ground lead (if used) shall not exceed 3 meters.

To me it makes a clear distinction between "antenna" and "ground lead" and 
between "ground lead" and the actually grounding system. The way I read that, 
the gutter would be part of your "grounding system", but the "ground lead" 
would only be the wire connecting the xmitter to that.

The bottom line is that if you had a 1 acre copper plate, from the way I read 
this you could put your transmitter and antenna in the middle of it, use an 
inch of wire to connect to it, and your "ground lead" would only be that inch 
of wire.

I do know you could get into a situation where you are playing games with 
semantics, but I don't think the FCC would feel that the interpretation I've 
made on the guttering would be unreasonable. And I'm not convinced they'd 
have a problem if you could really come up with an acre of copper either 
unless you were causing harmful interference (which puts things in a whole 
different class). Bottom line is you are so limited in emission efficiency 
because of the antenna restrictions that even with a "perfect" ground you 
aren't going to go far.

I suspect there may be a diversity of opinions though. :-)

73 de
Jim W4JBM

Receiver - Ten Tec RX320D
Antenna - Butternut Vertical (SW) and mini-whip (LF)
Location - Bowdon Junction, GA  USA (33.6581,-85.1249 EM73)

http://www.hamuniverse.com/w4jbm/

"With a soldering iron in one hand, a schematic in the other, and a puzzled 
look on his face..."

Working the world from the New Dog Iron Ranch!