A reminder that ice on a ground plane can possibly detune the antenna. If you don't have an SWR meter, might just want to shut down until the sun comes out. Just a suggestion.
Nah, you just need to run a few kilowatts into it to deice it I get this problem every year with my jpole. They seem to be extra sensitive to show and ice buildup which is why it is a smart idea to build them with larger diameter pipes to increase bandwidth. Many types of antennas at VHF/UHF seem to be extra sensitive to rain/snow/ice. With mine the ice always seems to drag the frequency of optimal operation down a MHz or two but not bad enough that I have to worry much.
While not addressing the icing problem directly, a backup attic antenna can be pressed into service during times of icing.
Of course, a two story house would be helpful to have adequate antenna height, and you would want to keep the power level low enough to avoid rf problems with your equipment.
Not the best coverage, but at least you're still on the air.
Just curious how bad do your guys SWR get? The worst I seem to get is 3:1 and that's only when it's storming heavily or have chunks of ice around the base of the antenna. Normally a bit of rain, snow, or ice will give me on average 1.8:1 to 2:1.
Yea, I generally see the 1.8 to 2:1 swr that you do when iced up. I can tune out the swr with my balanced tuner, but I have to keep watching the meter over time. The swr will drift up again. I can always bring it down to nearly 1:1, but I know I'm probably just heating ice instead of radiating rf. When this happens, it's better to just do something else of interest or switch to an attic antenna.
I need to get an SWR meter so I can see what's actually going on. It must be pretty good though. I get out about 6 to 8 miles with 15 watts. I tried to put my antenna in the attic, but I'm on the third floor and it was too close to the audio equipment. Big mistake! I guess I should have a CB person run a "K" through my antenna to melt the ice.
Yep, nothing takes the place of the meter to see what's really going on. Any meter that is good for the vhf bands in the "ham" realm will work well, as I mentioned in another post.
I know 15 watts into an attic antenna will not work in your 3rd floor situation, but I'd bet 1 watt would. I've run that level before with an attic antenna and never had any "issues".
I've figured that if I could locate the transmitter next to the antenna at the far end of the attic it would probably work ok. However, that would be A LOT of trouble. The only real advantages I can see would be protection from the elements and of course being hidden from any 'prying eyes'. Come to think of it, those are pretty good reasons! However, it works fine now, and I believe that if it works don't fix it.
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