DirecTV slimine dish re-purposed as 2m ham antenna

[Conky]

Article here
http://w6nbc.com/articles/2016-3QSTdishslot.pdf
Video here(FFWD to 18:50)(FFWD to 36min to see what an 80acre antenna farm looks like)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MUWc9qt90Y

Not outstanding performance(2dB?), but it's cheap/free, stealthy(kinda) and something to play..errr experiment with

 

[Cham]

Could do 70cm band on one of those 18" dishes, or maybe 6m on a C-band dish! Of course the latter would defeat the advantage of stealth.

Lots of broadcast antennae use the slot design, especially TV, since the antenna stack is a vertical structure the slots are also vertical, making the antenna horizontal polarized. I have done some experimenting with these in the past, trying a 23 and 70cm vertical with horizontal polarity for CW/SSB operation using copper tubing. Could get the SWR to match not too badly but the gain was not as good as I had hoped for.

There are companies that specialize in stealth antenna products (mostly for mobile use), and I think I have seen a satellite dish look-alike in their product list. Not sure wether it was a slot antenna or not though.

 

[FaT Air]

2 dbi, OK, compared to an isotropic. isn't 2dbi equivalent to a 1/4 wave?

 

[jorgek]

A 1/4 wave actually has zero or negative gain. Add a piece of coax and it gets worse.

 

[Radioguy41]

Can't get more stealthy than this 2M antenna.

 

[KJ6EO]

A very clever antenna. When I got married 33 years ago (has it really been that long ), I lived in an Apartment of course. I was on the 3rd floor and I noticed that there was an un-grounded metal rain gutter that ran all the way around the top of the building. I could reach it so I cut a 1/4" slot in it. I sealed up the slot with some silicone. I drilled two small holes so that I could install some 10-32 screws to clip on to. I ran a small piece of ladder line to my antenna tuner just inside my bedroom. That Rain Gutter made an excellent loop on 40, 80, and 160 Meters. I ran a kilowatt into it every night and I was Q5. When I got done with my QSO's, I unclipped the ladder line and pulled it inside and closed the window.

I tore up everything in that building that had a speaker on it . However, they could never figure it out

 

[jorgek]

I have never transmitted using a rain gutter but our ungrounded aluminium gutter makes an excellent short wave antenna.