Does stapling it to your neighbours' fence lines and painting it like the wood c...

aeonik · 2026-06-27T17:56:36 1782582996

I just string the antenna across my attic.

Coupling into my power upstairs is a bit of a problem sometimes though.

Pirating power is something I've heard that happens, but I looked it up, and couldn't find an actual cited example of someone doing it via induction.

Plenty of people doing it via extension cords and device tampering though.

ErroneousBosh · 2026-06-27T19:35:10 1782588910

> Coupling into my power upstairs is a bit of a problem sometimes though.

I haven't worked with my end-fed on 40m for a couple of years. We've recently all had our crappy old aluminium-cored BT lines replaced with shiny new fibre though, so this time I am unlikely to lift the coveted Worked All DSLAMs trophy ;-)

microgpt · 2026-06-28T09:23:34 1782638614

I meant feeding RF back into the power grid to use it as your very large antenna

aeonik · 2026-06-30T20:15:28 1782850528

You nerd sniped with this one.

I looked it up, and apparently utility companies already use the lines for comms, so you would be stomping on those potentially (depending on frequency).

As for radiating... Possibly... But the tuning seems ridiculously hard/out of your control.

The conductors are huge, and I can't imagine getting a stable RF standing wave across grid scale infra like that.

I'm sure it's possible... Those lines are actually too long and changing electrical length for most useful RF.

I'm going to have to dig a bit deeper though.