Three and a half years ago my family moved from southwest Edmond to Logan County. We had a very small property where antenna space was limited. I did have a dual band vertical on my roof and a dipole supported by trees running directly over my house. HF was extremely noisy (S5-S7) all the time but I was able to manage some contacts. Our new property is 3/4 of an acre but unfortunately there is an HOA. That is the bad part. The good part is that my noise floor is very close S0.
I know many of you are likely against the idea of an HOA but they have been becoming more prevalent over the last 30+ years. Let’s face it, the majority of modern planned neighborhoods have an HOA so it can be difficult to find a good property for a family that does not have one. Even with an HOA, I have been able set up antennas and operate successfully. Hopefully my experience will give you some ideas.
In this view of my house from the street, I have two HF antennas installed. During the winter when the trees are bare, you can slightly see one of them if you look closely at exactly the right time. Most of the time, people don’t even know they are there.
I have installed two HF antennas: an end-fed half wave 80m dipole and a Hustler 4BTV 4-band vertical. The dipole anchors to a pipe on the right side of the photo on the other side of the chain link fence and the center is supported by the tall tree in the middle of the frame. It is very close to the top at around 40 feet. The vertical is installed among the trees towards the left side of the photo. This is along a dry creek bed with lots of trees. They kept as many mature trees as possible when building our house so we have tons of nice trees which double as antenna supports!
Above are a few photos of my dipole. I drove a piece of pipe into the ground for an anchor point. This particular dipole was designed to be installed with the matching transformer installed close to the ground. This setup also works well for feeding it in my setup. I ran the coax through a piece of PVC pipe to allow for mowing and weed eating without hitting the coax.
The photos above show more details of the vertical installation. The antenna is mounted on a piece of pipe that was driven into the ground. A few months ago I added the radial plate to make it easier to install and connect the radials. Radials are required for most HF verticals as the vertical element is only half of the antenna. It needs a ground plane, that the radials provide, to radiate effectively. The radial plate has a single connection to the ground portion of the antenna. This also allows me to use landscaping clips to anchor the radials to the ground. I used to have them just running along the ground and I did hit them with the mower a couple of times. Here, too, I have the coax running through a short piece of PVC to protect it when I mow this area.
I also had to deal with a path to run my coax. As you can see from all the photos, the antennas are a good distance from the back of the house and I didn’t want the coax just running across the yard. I actually did that the first summer and it was a pain to move it every time I mowed. My solution was to dig a trench and install a PVC conduit.
I installed a plastic pull box just on the creek bed side of the chain link fence. The coax runs from the house to this pull box so that I can make changes without having to dig up my yard. The coax is directly buried from this pull box to each antenna. Since I have not worked on the grass in this area it is not a huge deal if I have to dig it up to replace it at some point. Note: The third coax you see is for my DMR repeater which is not discussed in this article.
The conduit comes out of the ground right next to the house. I do still need to install a plastic box on the brick for the terminations. The coax then runs into the soffit, through the attic and down the wall in to my office on the front side of the house. The coax from here to the antenna is LMR400 and from the office to here is RG-8X. I know there is some cable loss with this setup but at HF frequencies it has worked well without any issues.
Having the antennas in the trees has worked well. Since they are a good distance behind the house, they don’t pick up RF noise from the house. Our power lines are also underground which I am sure helps. They also help hide the antennas. The dipole is hard enough for me to see and I know to look for it. The vertical is a little more visible but it has not been a problem so far. It helps that our neighborhood is out of town and nearly everyone is pretty laid back.
While these are both of my HF antennas, I do have a couple of VHF/UHF antennas. They are installed in my attic. The coax run would be pretty long for those frequencies plus I have not found it necessary yet to do anything differently.
I know everyone’s options are different but hopefully this will give someone an idea. Even in an HOA there are antenna options. Just remember that most people’s idea of an antenna is one of those old beam TV antennas.
Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
Steven, N5ZQ
n5zq@n5zq.us
