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Be sure the Slinky you use is metal. The plastic ones don't work nearly as well.

When I put up my 5 band quad about 20 years ago I used that coax switch and five 75 ohm matching sections. Rented a manlift with a 65-foot capacity, which attracted the attention of a few neighborhood kids. Took about 2 hours to complete all the sealing and waterproofing. When I came down and...

Is the RF Gain control all the way up (clockwise)?

Put a DC ammeter in series with the main power lead to the amplifier and find out. OR get a DC clamp-on ammeter and use that. Handy instruments to have if you're mobiling.

Attic antennas seem to work acceptably for some, but I have to ask about metallic structures like water/gas piping, foil faced insulation batts, home electrical / TV wiring and cabling and so forth. The antenna you finally decide to build and install may be fine; just remember to watch for the...

A receive antenna doesn't care what the SWR is. You're compromised with that antenna for CB, but connect a good receiver to it and you might be surprised. Remember, if Marconi had worried about whether his antennas would "work", we probably wouldn't have radio as we do today. Experiment!

I had to read this a couple of times..."96 feet tall but only three inches high" was what I read. The next line of text started with the word "pressure". Ah! Not a problem!:rolleyes:

"...tired of getting electrocuted." ?? If you get "electrocuted", you are dead. You can get shocked many times, like on a cold, dry day when you scuff your shoes on the carpet and then touch the kitchen sink to get a drink of water. Or touch a doorknob. This shock is high voltage but...

The earth is a globe, not a flat surface. You need to get a Great Circle map centered on your location. Drawing a line from the center to wherever you're looking to transmit will show you the true compass bearing for that location. It's not as complex as it sounds. Google Earth can show it...

Hotels are/may be made of steel and act like Faraday cages, with very little signal getting into the room. If you can string a hunk of wire along the room window (like I suggested for your windshield), you may have luck. I have a little Sony pocket-size portable radio with AM/FM bands, plus a...

For just receiving, you might try a piece of wire (doesn't have to be any special kind, but small. Tape it across the inside of the top of the windshield. From there, attach it to the receiver antenna terminal. You didn't give much information about the receiver so I'm shooting in the dark...

When I was SWLing in the 1950s, before I got my Novice license, I had a very nice Hallicrafters SX-99 receiver. For an antenna I used a piece of bell wire that ran from the farthest corner of my shack/bedroom, kittycorner to the corner above my desk, and from there to the antenna terminal of...

That's pretty close to it. What I'm saying is that with an actual SWR meter, you can vary your output power without seeing a corresponding change in the (Voltage) Standing Wave Ratio. There are too many "Switch to FWD; key transmitter and adjust the knob for full scale; unkey transmitter...

How much metal do you have in the attic? Air conditioning ducts, water pipes, electrical wiring, foil-faced insulation batts and so forth. Most efficient way to see if an antenna will work in a particular case is to build it, install it, and test it. Before testing, though, you need your...

Secret Squirrel - the SWR doesn't get lower; the reflected power does because the forward power has been used up heating the cable. Several "SWR meters" are really responding to reflected power and have scales that read in approximations of SWR. Not the same thing.

Like chicken.

Makes my root canal (tomorrow afternoon) seem not worth mentioning, so I won't. ;) Still, glad you're feeling better, Garth. Stay warm!

The longer the coax the lower the reflected power will be because it's all wasted heating up the feedline. Ideally, about a mile of coax will give low reflected power on all bands.

If I had to get rid of all the stuff I don't use, my house would implode from the resulting vacuum. Except for the vacuum; I do use it.