Advice on Antennae

Morning all - as per my intro post I am returning to radio after many years, I have some bits and pieces from back in the 80s, + bits given to me more recently. So first job is to get the Antenna in place.

If any use with a dig in the attic I have an aluminium di-pole from the 27Mhz 80s period, as well as a vertical aluminium antenna about 18' same age, so I was thinking of sticking the vertical one on the pole already on the chimney and the di-pole horizontally in the roof space, then use a selector switch?? Feel free to advise on the foolishness of the plan and any better ideas to potentially get a bit of local but more hopefully the odd opportunity wider afield when conditions allow I've got a reasonable uninterupted line of site for miles from about 280 NW to 60 NE as were on bit of a hill if that makes any difference to what I do.


Thanks in advance,
Franc

Sounds perfectly reasonable. Be aware that since the 80's the amount of QRN generated from domestic properties has gone through the roof. Siting your antenna in close proximity to the house may be a disaster. On the positive side, TVI seems to no longer be an issue.

You may be fortunate to find the source or QRN in your own house in which case you can eradicate it, or it may be from a neighbouring property which you may not be able to solve. If you double the distance of the antenna away from the noise it will go down by three quarters (inverse square law) so distance is your friend.

Height and take off are important for local contacts, less so for dx.

Thanks for that,
Would I be Better to start down the garden trying a setup from there with the antenna, I can put a pole up on the sheds, - I have 50M ish of 50 ohm low loss coax I was given - or does this length make things worse? I presume if I do that I can check the cables continuity using a multimeter its on a spool but not new..That way I can get 40+M from any house as there is just fields at the back. There again I suppose the challenge is to try both...and report back.
Franc

Yes, experiment, that's the way to learn! keep the length of coax the same in both situations so the only variable is locally generated noise.

at 28MHz coax loss is not that significant. I accept that you will lose power at the antenna a bit, but the gains you could make by lowering the noise floor will be a great advantage and you could always increase transmitter power to compensate. I have a feeder run of 39m and it's not been an issue.

You will never hear someone buried in the noise.

Thanks I’m going to do a shed trial first!