I live in an HOA (Home Owners Association) neighborhood in Gilbert, Arizona. What that means is “No Antennas”. What that means to me is “No Antennas that are permanent and can be easily seen”. I choose to live in this neighborhood so I don’t blame the HOA for restricting my antenna choices. I also wouldn’t put up an antenna that would be an ‘eye-sore’ to my neighbors.

My Antenna is a 31′ tall, vertical fiberglass pole with a 16g wire down the middle. It is telescopic from 4′ to 31′. You twist lock each 4 foot section together as you extend the sections. It goes up or down in about 1 minute. To date is has been an excellent antenna and very low cost. I have worked a lot of DX for such a simple install.

At the base of the antenna is a 4:1 homebrew UNUN and an extensive ground radial network. I have twenty five, 31′ copper wires that fan out from the mounting point. There is also an 8′ copper ground rod, driven straight down, to provide the central ‘tie’ point and an earth ground. You can see in the 1st picture above a rod iron fence at the north end of the yard. Some of the radials meet up with the 81′ fence and I have terminated them to it. It really made a difference and provides a nice extended ground-plane.

UPDATED 2019

I changed from a shack tuner and balun to a remote ATU that’s mounted right at the base of the antenna. Incredible performance gain!