As previously mentioned, I am currently running a small antenna indoors that is really meant to be a car antenna. It has some serious limitations. People assure me that I should be able to make contact with a good antenna with only a few watts, I find myself having to go up to as much as 30 for what should only take 5 sometimes...
The first thing that I'm going to have to do is to figure out where I want to make my indoor ham shack. Right now I'm using my secondary table, but that's not really idea for a few reasons. I need a permanent location so I can run cables to that location, and it's a bit difficult to move them around. Plus my kitchen is essentially in the middle of my house, something on the edges would be easier to run the cables to.
Next is the antennas. I've got my eyes opened at a few things, but the main thing that I'm thinking now is a loop antenna in my attic for HF, and a 2m J dipole either in my attic, or on my roof top. Putting something on my roof scares me a bit, as I'm in a 3 story town home, but I could figure something out if I had to. I'm just still trying to learn what it is that I need to do to optimize reception, and I'm not sure how much broadcasting through my roof would affect the reception. Still, it can't be worse than what I have right now.
I'm hoping to get into contact with the local Ham group and get a few suggestions. I'm starting to learn that the secret of being a good Ham is to figure antennas out;-)
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