remote operation?

J

jbyers

Member
Hi,

I hope this forum work for this question. After many attempts w/ different antenna's, I'm pretty much certain that there's no way I can jump on HF where I live because the RF environment is so complex. But I do have an option which I'm trying to research.

I live on the 10th floor of a high-rise building which is 32 floors high. I have space to put up an antenna at the top of the building, but I don't know how to use it w/ my gear down below. And this is what I'm after. I've heard talk about operating a stations remotely, and was hoping someone would offer some insight as to how something like this might be done.

73's
 
Hiya!

Remote operation of a station is only normally needed if you want to control your equipment from a number of miles away, which doesn't really apply in your case.

What you do need to be able to do is remotely tune your antenna system on the roof of the apartment block.

There are two main options for you:

1) Use a random dipole or perhaps a G5RV, Carolina Windom, etc. mounted on the roof, and then run a length of low loss coax down the building to wherever your station is located. At the station end you could then use either a manual tuner, or an auto ATU to couple your transceiver to the antenna system.

2) Install a wide-band antenna, such as a Diamond BB7V, or Comet CHA-250V etc. and again run a length of low loss coaxial feeder down the building to your station. With a wideband antenna you do not normally need to use a tuner to obtain a match, so you can connect the coax directly to your transceiver.

Trying to span 22 floors from your apartment to the roof will require either low loss, good quality coax, or else depending upon the antenna type you could use 450 Ohm or even 600 Ohm open wire feeder. Open wire feeder will greatly reduce power loss especially if you are using a random dipole where you will be using an ATU located down by the transceiver.

Also, if you do use open wire feeder you will need some way to keep the feeder away from the structure of the building (don't run it flat against the walls), by perhaps 15cm (about six inches) or so.

One final option might be to use an auto ATU remotely mounted on the roof with the antenna, with a coax feed back to the radio below. However in that case you will need to provide power for the auto tuner, so you will either need a battery powered unit such as an SGC-211, or else you will have to supply power via some other means. If there is a power point near by you could install a small power supply on the roof near the tuner. Else you could remotely feed power from your apartment below, either via a second cable, or through the coax itself by using an MFJ Bias-Tee unit (MFJ-4117, MFJ-4116, MFJ-4116P etc.) With the Bias-Tee option you will need one at each end of the coaxial feeder, one to 'inject' the DC into the feeder, and another to recover the power at the tuner end.

Hope my ramble makes sense!

Best 73, Mark.
 
Darn. None of this is possible.

There are 20 floors between my floor and the top of the build, 30 stories high. I'm on the tenth. There's no way this building would let me run coax down the elevator shafts or any other conduits for building code reasons. Running cable down high-rises is just something that you can't do w/o an act of congress.
 
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