I live with antenna restrictions. Thankfully, I have permission for a perfectly good wire antenna outside for 40 through 10 meters at 35 feet. What I lack is an 80-meter antenna and a backup antenna in case I lose my main wire to ice, wind or snow here in the northeast.

The Alpha Antenna “HOA Buster” appealed to me because it offered the possibility of filling both of my shortcomings. It is advertised as an “80 through 10 meter” antenna and it uses the gutters and downspout system as the radiator. I ordered it.

When it arrived it certainly was an impressive and heavy transformer, built like a brick-you-know-what! It seemed a bit expensive considering what arrived in the box: the transformer, an eight foot piece of wire with an industrial sized alligator clip and a rather short “ground rod” of perhaps one foot or so.

The instructions were short and sweet. Stick the ground rod into the soil, mount the transformer on the rod next to the gutter and connect the wire between the transformer and the end of the gutter.

Well…it loaded up just fine with a little help from my MFJ manual Versa Tuner — the internal ATU in my FTdx10 couldn’t handle it — and so I tried it out on 80, 40 and 20 meters. RBN reported a range of SNRs that seemed to indicate it was radiating. Unfortunately, my Bose WaveRadio was turning itself on and off and the LED lights in the house were flickering.

Clearly, I had a problem, and it wasn’t necessarily the product — I live in a townhouse and my gutters are very short – about 39 feet in total. They are also installed in short runs, and I suspect very poor electrical connections between them. Because of the height of the roof line there wasn’t much I could do to improve the situation. Clearly this was not going to work. If I was clobbering my own home, I was most likely affecting my neighbors.

Based on a conversation with Alpha Antenna, I took an alternate approach. First, I sunk a “real” copper ground rod into the soil and mounted the transformer on it. Then I connected the coax to the transformer and passed 6 turns of the RG-8X through a Fair-Rite Mix 31 2.5-inch toroid before connecting it to my window feed through. Now, for the best part: I ran a 60-foot wire from the transformer up to the top of a nearby Maple tree – about 30 feet high – and then back down in “inverted vee” fashion to another tree, terminating about 12 feet above the ground.

Repeating my tests, the antenna generated NO RF interference and RBN reported measurably higher SNRs. I made a couple contacts on 80 meters – my first 80-meter contacts in nearly 20 years – and got 579 signal reports. Forty worked great and so did 20. I just haven’t had time to try the other bands yet.

In summary, for the money I spent, I now have 80-meter capability and I now have a backup for my main Inverted L antenna. I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. Additionally, I can see how this rugged transformer, along with the ground spike it came with, could also serve as a portable antenna for POTA, SOTA or just a day trek to anywhere.

Mission accomplished!

WB2LQF

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