What is this?

Dr Lobster*
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Joined: Sat 30 Aug, 2003 20.14

some of you boys and girls might have noticed i've not been around much lately, well, i've been moving house and it's taken us a bit of time to get everything sorted, as well as being quite stressful due to the utter incompetence of our buyers conveyancer. but, it's all done now.

we've moved from a persimmon town house to a lovely bungalow in a truly idyllic little norfolk village. instead of hearing cars and people's shit music playing on a saturday morning, i now hear lovely little singing birds - living in a town development has it's advantages (like close access to takeaways, could walk home from the pub on a night out with my buddies), sadly in those persimmon developments you tend to get quite a lot of arseholes, like our old neighbour who used to drive around in untaxed (and i assume uninsured) cars constantly.

anyway, the guy who used to live here (he sadly died about a year ago) was a bit of an inventor - there is some pretty clever wiring in the house that i'm slowly trying to understand, but what really confuddled me is this:

Image

i found this in the loft, it was powered by a mains adapter - i'm just wondering - do any of you clever people know what it is? it looks like some sort of aerial, but as you can see it's fixed to a wall in the loft, it seems a bit of a strange place to have it. although it's missing out of the picture, the top of the pole just has a white plastic cap on it.

any ideas?
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Nick Harvey
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Looka a bit more transmit than recieve to me at first glance. That's the best I can do quickly, I'm afraid.
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Sput
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Is it a CB antenna?
Knight knight
James L H
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Looks a bit like a low powered microwave transmitter. :? Or a HAM radio enthusiasts stuff?
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tillyoshea
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Sput wrote:Is it a CB antenna?
I initially read that as "C5"... no wonder it was fuzzy if it came via rigs in people's lofts! :lol:
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Nick Harvey
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Sput wrote:Is it a CB antenna?
Not one I've ever seen; and I used most versions (legal and slightly otherwise) in the very early eighties.

Ten ten from the one Whisky Drinker, good buddies.
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WillPS
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Is there any other leads or connections going in to it other than power? For a time in the 90s/early 00s there was a trend for anoraks to set up their own MW/FM transmitting equipment and relay Radio Caroline's satellite (and later internet) feed contrary to the Postmaster General's wishes. I can recall my Dad finding one of these in the car while at my grandparents' years ago; this would have been somewhere around the Wayland area (probably somewhere between Watton, Attleborough and Thetford).
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Alexia
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Here's something slightly out of leftfield; given its location and its shape, it could be an APT weather satellite receiving turnstile antenna.

"A turnstile antenna is a set of two dipole antennas aligned at right angles to each other and fed 90 degrees out-of-phase. The name reflects that the antenna looks like a turnstile when mounted horizontally."

It looks similar to others on this page:

http://www.digitalham.co.uk/weather/equ ... e-antenna/
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Ebeneezer Scrooge
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The length of the dipole looks shorter than the 137mhz images - I think 137mhz requires a dipole length of around 3 foot. It's hard to tell from the photo, but it doesn't look to be over 2 foot total length which would put it up in the region of 225mhz, which is not available for amateur use in the uk as far as I can tell.
Snarky
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marksi
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Initially I'd have said almost exactly what Nick did but the fact that it is mains powered suggests a masthead amp is involved and that'll only be for a receiver - if it was to transmit the power supply would be connected to the external box it was connected to.

But frankly, that's as close as my guesswork comes. I will, however, send it on to someone who might know more.
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Nick Harvey
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If it is for around 225Mhz, then perhaps he was an early DAB DXer?

Did DAB come late to that part of the world, doctor?
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