Amateur Radio shack/antenna considerations during house construction

Question

We are constructing a house on a tiny 30ft by 55ft plot and the construction uses cement bricks and the roof has embedded iron rods. The house has ground + 2 floors and the top floor mostly has two rooms, one of which I plan to use for the shack.

As someone interested in 40m and 20m, I am planning to try putting a fan dipole (if needed, I hope to get some help from the neighbouring house in extending the antenna) and also explore other antenna construction techniques for limited space.

Are there any references or considerations on house construction specific to amateur radio operation? I will need to put small ducts through the walls to route the cables. Is there any value in putting a permanent mast with a pulley at the top?

Answer 1

Ideally you want a place to put that antenna in the clear, though getting any HF antenna in the clear on such a tiny lot is going to be tricky no matter how you do it. Not much you can do about it, besides buy a bigger lot. If the antenna is close-ish to your roof, don't worry: it will still work.

Masts are always useful. Whether it's permanent or not is really up to you. A pulley at the top makes pulling dipoles up easier, but also think about how you'll service rope and the pulley. You might want to make that a push-up mast, or have some way to tilt it down so you can get at the top of the mast without a tall ladder precariously balanced on your roof.

I also lived on a small lot once, and I installed a trap vertical on the center of the roof, with radials extending to the edge of the roof. I mounted it on a standard rooftoop TV antenna tripod screwed into the roof decking, with three guy wires to be sure the wind wouldn't blow it over. It worked pretty OK, though there was a lot of noise. Such is to be expected in an urban area. There was simply no place to put it that wasn't within 30 feet of my house or a neighbor.

If you can manage it, it would be nice to have the electrical service ground in the same place as you plan to have the antenna feedline enter the house. This will make lightning protection easier.