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Originally uploaded by popwireless

Those of us with wireless hobbies like Amateur Radio, short-wave listening, broadcast band DX’ing and so on know the usual gripes about antennas. Some folks just do not find the wires above our homes as amazing and attractive as the aficionados do. To me an antenna is a work of art. To others they are simply ugly wires blocking a view.

The problem. Hide the legs of an eighty meter dipole. (Ugly wires to some.) On one side allow another long wire antenna to turn right and go off to another support AND minimize the appearance issues with my landscape.

The materials used were a twenty five foot wooden pole once used to hold nets in the Chesapeake Bay. The pole was hauled up from the beach and stained with a cedar oil stain. Next a HUGE bird house suitable for Purple Martins is prepared for the top. My spouse and I found the birdhouse at our favorite Mennonite store in located in St. Mary’s County, Maryland. The next trick is to put the pole in the ground. This required four hundred pounds of concrete a DEEP hole, a couple of four by four fence posts and some heavy bolts. One bolt acts as a pin so the pole cab raised and lowered using the bolt as a pivot point. The entire structure is very heavy. Raising it took two people.

Antenna wires run from the house at two locations to just under the bird house. One wire is connected to a rope that goes through a pulley. At the end of the rope is a small weight. This allows the antenna wire to flex in the high winds we experience.The birds love the house and the wire. The view of the sky from the living room is enhanced. DX’ing on 80 meters is still possible and so is bird watching from the living room.

The opposite leg of the dipole also goes to a shorter wooden pole that has a bluebird house attached to it. Three years in a row that bird house has been occupied with lots of baby sparrows to our credit. The Purple Martin house is new so we have to wait and see how our purple buddies take to it when they return from wherever they go each year. Maryland skies are loaded with these tiny little acrobats each year as the swoop on the flying bug population.

The bird house support is crooked enough to have some character. One looks first at the post and the bird house and frankly misses the wires. I’ve had lots of compliments and my wife enjoys the birds that stop by. This was a big project that took some planning and execution across a couple of weekends but in the end it was well worth it.