What Amateur Radio Antenna Do You Use in Your HOA or When Space is Limited?

Here’s What Some Experienced Hams Had to Say.

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DX Engineering’s Facebook page recently posed this question to its readers:

HOA restrictions? Small space? What antenna setup is actually working for you?

A flurry of excellent responses followed. Here are just a few:

• “I use the Alpha Antenna HOA Buster Gutter Antenna and an end-fed random wire, but I paint the wire the color of the location to make it blend in or hide in a tree. But where I have a tall white fence, I just paint my wire white. I’m one of those ‘switch from time to time’ operators: use the gutter for a couple months, switch to the random wire for a couple months, so I use both at my station.”

• “I have the Hustler 6BTV Antenna in the backyard with 64 radials buried. If anyone complains put an American flag on it. It would look just like a flagpole.”

The Hustler 6BTV 6-Band (80/40/30/20/15/10M) 24-Foot Vertical Antenna performs well in restricted spaces when installed with radial wires. It provides automatic selection of bands through optimum-Q traps, which are individually and precisely tuned and internally sealed. These traps are parallel-tuned circuits, which provide very effective isolation between the vertical sections, permitting precise multiband operation. The 6BTV has a power rating of 1,500W SSB/1,000W CW.

• “I have a couple dipoles up, but to my surprise the favorite antenna is a Hustler Vertical 5BTV.”

Get all the details about properly installing radial wires and so much more about maximizing your Hustler antenna in the 60-page DX Engineering 4BTV, 5BTV, 6BTV Instruction Manual.

• “Started with a Butternut HF6V painted brown to blend in with existing trees. Moved to a larger lot with numerous trees. I have a 75-meter full-wave loop, a two-element 20-meter quad that is fixed to the northwest, and a 160-meter half-wave inverted-L. All are number 14 Home Depot household wire antennas. 45 years and not detected by HOA. Be creative.”

• “Comet CHA-250HD for the win!! Vertical antenna and no radials. Worked over 150 countries!!”

• “I have 20-meter ham sticks in a dipole configuration about 18 feet and talk fairly well when the band is in my favor with 100 watts.”

• “A Diamond X50A in the attic and a Chameleon EMCOMM II between two trees in the yard.”

• “I live in one room at an assisted living center. I have an ATAS-25 tripod antenna standing just inside my window. I do CW every day with another old guy still living in the outside world.”