My pathetic base setup

[Critter98]

Due to circumstances beyond my control my radio is in the basement of a one story house & antenna is in the attic. I routed the coax up to the attic. I have a sheet of metal with a mag mount antenna on it. SWR is Ok 1.3 - 1..8. Without going to an indoor dipole spread throughout the attic is there anything I can stick up there to improve tx distance. Rx is great.
Tks in adv.

[Windwalker]

Personally I would go with a Dipole antenna. The fact that it is so much longer alone will help.
That type of set up will work but has its limitations. Maybe you could get a ground rod and install that to use as an xtra ground. Otherwise you could ground to the dreaded cold water pipe. Basically try to add ground to the system in my opinion.
You could also ground the PL-259 connector on the back of the radio. To do that I would use a hose clamp and a solid strand wire fairly heavy right to the outer barrel of the connector.

WW Global.

[MDYoungblood]

I will go along with the dipole antenna but since you have something up there already, lets improve on that. The sheet of metal needs to electrically a 1/4 wave length and it probably isn't but you can add wire to the length to get this, about 8 1/2 to 9 foot each, as many as you can from the base of the magnet mount outward, look at a ground plane antenna to get an example. This will help in an omnidirectional pattern and make the signal more efficient. Granted it will not be the performance of an outside antenna but it will help.

3's

Greg

[De_Wildfire]

Go with a dipole antenna. I have made contacts with stations that use dipoles in the attic across the country and it works for skip. I have one up there as a backup antenna. I had to lay planks down so I could walk up there and use a small step ladder to hang the center point. I put plastic insulators on the ends and tied them to the rafters.

[Critter98]

I did run some sheets of aluminum foil under the antenna. Don't really know if that helped or not.

[MDYoungblood]

I did run some sheets of aluminum foil under the antenna. Don't really know if that helped or not.

It should if they were 8 1/2 to 9 feet long.

3's

Greg

[Critter98]

Thanks for comments, suggestions & advice. I'm going to go with the 9ft lengths of metal to improve upon what I already have. I may attempt a dipole later & incorporate a switch between the two antenna for short vs long distance.