If I were to install an outdoor antenna at my apartment, how would I do it?

I'm in a second story apartment and could probably mount to my balcony, but what kind of mounts could I use? Just thinking about it for now, I pick up most channels here in LA, but I'd like to try and get some long range stations.

Out on the balcony will help a little in any direction, but really you need to be on the side of the building toward Mt Wilson.

A lot of people build their own mounts out of commercial parts, so they don't do anything to the landlords property.

Something like a block of wood weighed down wtih a cement block. Then put a satellite mount J mount on the wood, but point the j pole straight up.

• If the railing spokes on the balcony are thick enough, you may be able to clamp small pipe-vent mounts to a spoke and secure a mast to that.

• In a variation on that theme, you might be able to use U-bolts and mating clamps to secure the mast against a spoke.

• The good old mast-in-a-cement-bucket trick is the most "cost-efficient" (my gentle term for "cheapest" ) way to go. Just deposit said mount/mast in the nearest Dumpster when it's not needed any more.

In case you haven't already seen them, you can also use one of these to snake the downlead through a door or a window frame and avoid having to drill a hole for the cable. They claim you'll still be able to lock/latch the door/window.

Thanks for that last bit Don!

Have you used one of those? That looks like a handy device.

Originally Posted by Don_M

• If the railing spokes on the balcony are thick enough, you may be able to clamp small pipe-vent mounts to a spoke and secure a mast to that.

• In a variation on that theme, you might be able to use U-bolts and mating clamps to secure the mast against a spoke.

• The good old mast-in-a-cement-bucket trick is the most "cost-efficient" (my gentle term for "cheapest" ) way to go. Just deposit said mount/mast in the nearest Dumpster when it's not needed any more.

In case you haven't already seen them, you can also use one of these to snake the downlead through a door or a window frame and avoid having to drill a hole for the cable. They claim you'll still be able to lock/latch the door/window.

An idea that just hit me is use garden hose or small rubber hose around c-clamps to reduce marring of the residence.

Also I have seen those through the window coax, but I have not heard of anyone using one. Someone buy one, ship it to FoxEng that has the test equipment to sweep it.

Originally Posted by Piggie

Also I have seen those through the window coax, but I have not heard of anyone using one. Someone buy one, ship it to FoxEng that has the test equipment to sweep it.

There are two now -- the one Eagle Aspen has been selling for some time, plus a more expensive one by Wilson Electronics. E/A claims a 1-dB insertion loss; Wilson says theirs is zero. Hmmm. Yeah, a sweep test might be nice for verification.

While Zero is my Hero..... it proves they are lying. Nothing is 0 db.

Wilson was famous for it's advertising in the CB, Ham and Marine markets. It wasn't an antenna I would buy.

Cast it in solid gold:

Originally Posted by Piggie

Nothing is 0 dB.

Perhaps I should have made that post sound a bit more skeptical. Even E/A's 1 dB is rather suspect; the two female F-connectors probably add up to almost that much insertion loss, and then there's the cable in between. Maintaining 75 ohms across "flat coax" would be a neat trick, particularly when snaked around a closed door or window (especially if its frame is aluminum!). As for the other brand's claim: If you believe that, could I interest you in buying some prime Colorado swamp land?

Originally Posted by Don_M

Cast it in solid gold:


Perhaps I should have made that post sound a bit more skeptical. Even E/A's 1 dB is rather suspect; the two female F-connectors probably add up to almost that much insertion loss, and then there's the cable in between. Maintaining 75 ohms across "flat coax" would be a neat trick, particularly when snaked around a closed door or window (especially if its frame is aluminum!). As for the other brand's claim: If you believe that, could I interest you in buying some prime Colorado swamp land?

hmm, maybe in Grand Teuton National Park?

I read somewhere the other day, an F fitting is 0.5 db. I would say, done correctly that is probably true. Despite it's lousy physical characteristics, electrically F fittings really are good. Bandwidth wise they are right up there with a good TNC or BNC, even better if the coax is high grade. A good compression F fitting is good to 3 GHz on good coax. If I remember right, a BNC/TNC is only good to about 2.5 GHz ??? It's been ages since I looked it up for a BNC.

===========

Once we were given 450 ft of 1/2 hardline that was 50 ohms. It was left on a tower, but the ends had been cut off. The only fitting we could find were cable TV F fittings we used to call Stingers. We then bought Female F to Male N connectors to go into the antenna at top and the duplexers at the bottom of the tower. Dang repeater got out very well on 224 MHz. Mobiles 60 miles away running 10 to 25 watts could work it. It was 10 watts into the duplexers on transmit. There was about 2.5 db loss in the duplexers and about 3 up the tower including connectors. The antenna was 6 db gain we built from a 224 MHz commercial but we beefed up the hardware to stand being up in the weather.. So we had an ERP of about 10 watts vertical.

It shocked the pudding out of me how well it worked. It could hear a 1 watt portable 30 miles out.

All that through f connectors!

Thanks for all of the ideas. Think I need to figure out if I want a more directional antenna for outside while keeping my indoor antenna, or if I want to go with a wider range outdoor antenna.