[Antennas] On The Glass Antennas

Sat Sep 4 20:28:08 EDT 2004

Hue Miller wrote:
>> The reason i became interested in thru-glass, is yes, for home use to get RF thru
> glass, as for a balcony, without having to pinch cable in a door. I have a couple
> replies that were interesting enuff, i hope the senders posted to the list also.
> I was a wee bit leery about large-ish aluminum foil pads on window glass just
> because high-Z points out in the open could be entry points for local noise.
> That's why i'm interested in how a low-Z, thru-glass system works. As in,
> imagine a receiving HF loop on the balcony, how to bring the coax inside without
> holes, cable pinched in doors, or noise from exposed wiring.

I don't ever recall seeing through the glass antenna coupling without
holes on HF stuff. Most of the schemes I have seen are designed for
VHF.
I can understand why such a scheme would be attractive as long as it
works, and works up to several hundred watts on transmit.
In my case I use a section of white painted lexan that mates with the
bottom on my window sash. Ceramic feed through insulators take care of
the open wire line and holes are drilled for coax. Everything is
weather proofed with caulk and the window has been modified to lock even
with the added section of lucite.
One approach that I have seen in some of the older literature is to
remove a pane of glass from multiple pane window. Replace it with a
sheet of lexan that is drilled for your feedthroughs for antenna leads. 
In retrospect that appears to be the more suitable method. You can
always restore the window to normal by reinstalling the original glass
pane.
Regards,
Frank Kamp