Being that it's close to Halloween 2019, it's now been 2 years since we've put the new AM1620 copper antenna into service. (Pictured just below.) What does it consist of? From bottom to top, you see a custom made wooden plate / bracket mount. This is coated with several layers of weather proofing wood staining, it also works well to insulate the metal components. Several wood screws mount that wooden plate to this garage's boards, just under the eves. Those horizontal wooden brackets are mounted to the plate with several L-brackets. If you can zero-in on to what's under that lower wooden bracket, that's a 12 inch #8AWG bare copper wire feeding from the ATU (Antenna Tuning Unit.), to the very bottom of the 9ft copper element, which is 5/8 inch copper tubing used in plumbing. This is the main radiating element, and together this and the adjoining #8AWG feed wire make up the maximum length allowed for Part #15 AM broadcasting of 10ft, or 3 meters. What's on top is call a Capacitive Tophat. Boomer, from station AM690 near Pittsburgh, calculated that this Tophat alone could add to a plus 6% to 10% efficiency to this antenna, and that's about what I get, compared to the whip antenna that preceded this one. This Tophat was made from a trashed 6 meter (50MHz), amateur radio antenna. This is ideal due to the fact that this is aluminum, making the top of this antenna not too top heavy. I did use an anti seize compound when I clamped the aluminum Tophat to the copper main antenna element to reduce corrosion of dissimilar metals. BTW, is this Tophat permissible? I guess that would depend upon whom you ask. Licensed 10W TIS (Traveler's Information Stations, like the ones that have you tune-in to road conditions.), are restricted to 50ft antennas, but make up for that small antenna with a large bicycle looking like Tophat. And, the way I look at it, I do not really see anything in the Part #15 FCC rules that says that you can not do this. However, between this added Tophat and th...

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