Antenna mounting height

What height can you mount a half wave aeriàls

Hi Wade,

I'd just mount it where you can and not worry too much.

See the link below for a brief explanation and the two polar plot images A and B :-

Dx Antennas Half Wave


All the best,
Victor

Wade there is a old saying with antennas hight is might , so get it up as high as possible without causing any problems ie: with the neighbor's and she who must be obeyed The Mrs lol and safely too, and where you are Chingford is nice and high above sea level even better if your up the top of  Chingford Mount way .

Wherever you want. Ground level mounted will work fine for DX but it'll be poor for local. For local you want it as high as you can get it. My mate went from having an Imax on the end of his 1st floor extension to putting it at the top of the third floor of the main part of his house and it was a night and day difference for local contacts.

Thanks for the advice. My main problem is the local councillor across the road who made it clear that it can't stick up by more than 1mtr above my chimney

Does the councillor mean the top of the antenna or the base can't be 1mtr cos if it's the base I wouldn't worry because if you've a tall house which I know some are in Chingford that would be brilliant even if it's not would be ok but if it's the tip mustn't  be then maybe not so good but should be OK, but it's better than not allowed to put one up at all .

Top of antenna no more than 1 metre above the highest point.

That's a pain , still it might not be as bad as it sounds  ,as you know your area is quite high above sea level , it might not be that drastic, there is a few loop holes about putting up antennas but some are lot of messing about ,one is if it's not actually attached to the house in anyway like fitted on a pole on a  trailer its classed mobile and then there is no permission needed from the council , but as I said a lot of messing around, just put it up and what happens.

Swadeyboy wrote:

Thanks for the advice. My main problem is the local councillor across the road who made it clear that it can't stick up by more than 1mtr above my chimney

Ignore the councillor, they can say what they want. The fact they've said that demonstrates they don't have the faintest clue what the planning regulations are.

Planning regulations require planning for anything that is above 10ft in height from the floor. The planning regulations state that a second or more antenna can be no longer than 60cm in any linear direction if you want to use it without planning permission. There is no "as long as it doesn't stick out a metre above the roofline you're OK" rule. Doesn't exist.

By law you need planning permission for pretty much every antenna you'll put up be it for CB or amateur radio barring a 1/4 wave for VHF. However unless someone complains the planning enforcement officers don't actively go looking.

Personally if it were me and I had an arse like that I'd put in permission for one at the top of my house. An application cannot be refused on the grounds it may cause interference because that is OFCOM's remit, not the planning departments and I even had a planning enforcement officer say the very same thing to me when a neighbour put in a complaint about me and my Hexbeam on a 30ft pneumatic mast. I ended up not having to put in planning "as long as I only put it up when I was using it but he understood I could be using it for extended periods of time" I was fortunate that the father of my local enforcement officer used to be a ham so the guy was quite relaxed when it came to antenna complaints.

Anyway is he judging it on what he thinks is a metre above the roof looking from his window? Thanks to maths and physics the further away it is from him the higher you can put it and it only look like it is a metre above your roof. If he's in a ground floor flat that's even better because due to the angle he'll be viewing it from you can put it up even further. Assuming that he's across the street looking at it from his living room and you put it on the back of the house you could almost have 13-14ft above the gutter and it would only look like it was sticking up a metre from his living room.

You could always try the "getting used to it" method. Stick it up low at first so it does stick a bit above the roof. Leave it a week, move it up 6 inches. Leave it a while again, rinse and repeat. Personally though I'd just shove it up and wait to see if there's a complaint. I doubt very much during the Covid crisis that the planning department will give a toss about a complaint over a CB antenna especially as Boris has just landed them with a whole load of regulation changes they're going to have to go over and it'll go to the bottom of the pile.

There is a ham who has a  cobweb antenna on top of his house and its in a brand new estate  and to be honest it looks so stupid and out of place , i am not sure if he needed planning permission or not   but my mrs commented that it looks like a giant  whirly gig .
The trailer mounted antenna is a good way to get round issues if you have the room .
My antenna has only just been put up in the air as it was sitting on the ground in between my garage and a shed and for dx  i had no issues at all .I bought an extending alloy mast years ago  and i have just given it a clean up and over the next few weeks i will extend it untill its up at around 20-30 feet with my 5/8 gainmaster on top and see what my neighbours  say .
I have been pondering in fitting a  12v winch to my extendable mast as i can just put it up and down when need be , ive seen a few good home made extendable ones on youtube  and if you have the tools and skills they for me are a good option .

I have been working this past few months with a half-wave on twenty feet of extension poles attached to a washing line pole concreted into the back garden and I have been getting out really quite well I feel, now people seem to be getting back to work I have every intention of mounting it on the gable end on a T&K bracket.

A busybody neighbour has clearly been complaining, she literally complains about everything and is even known to invent things to complain about and it wasn't long before the council sent planning applications to me which went swiftly in the bin, they even telephoned me but I instructed them it was clearly far from a permanent structure or alteration then I hung up and I have heard nothing since.

These people seem to thrive on messing you around, dragging their heels and being generally obstinate with their petty bureaucracy I notice, I find it is better to "do first" then smooth it over with them after or just ignore them completely as at the end of the day, what are they going to do?

A small person with a little bit of perceived power can be a mildly irritating thing at times...but like a rash, ignore it and it tends to go away on its own.

There is a lot of perception left over from the old CB days when TV interference was really bad. 

I remember wiping out my neighbours at my old house and coming ou onbtjeir TV sets as clear as day. 

I would tend to agree with that, I was quite fortunate when younger my next door neighbour was a HAM and kept me right from a young age with low pass filters and the likes.

The reality, for me at least, is in fact the other way around with modern technology interfering with our radios. I must have bought ten ferrite rings in mix 31 & 43 and fitted them to the power supply leads of the worst offenders, which I am pleased to say, has made a big difference.

Just get your twig up best you can and see what you can do with it, I have done a couple of what I felt were "compromise installations" and I don't think anybody would be dissapointed with the results I am getting.