Household aerial length limitation
 

I seem to remember that at one time the maximum length of a household wire aerial was limited to 100ft.
Can anyone confirm this and for how long it was in place.

Chris

Re: Household aerial length limitaion
 

It might have been a local authority matter. In the Becontree housng estate in Essex, any sort of external aerial was prohibited without permission, including TV aerials, as a term of the tenancy agreement, so people had to have them put in their lofts.

Re: Household aerial length limitaion
 

Yes, a requirement of the licence back in the early days, 100ft maximum antenna length including downlead so far as I know.

Lawrence.

Re: Household aerial length limitaion
 

The only thing I recollect from my early amateur radio licence is that aerials within a certain distance from an airfield weren't to exceed a certain height.

Wire aerials aren't a permitted development as far as planning regulations are concerned. Whoever drafted the rules had probably never heard of them. I've never had any complaints about my long wire aerials or support structures.

Re: Household aerial length limitaion
 

Here's an early ref. from 1925 stating 100ft:

https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/ID...2100%20feet%22

Lawrence.

Re: Household aerial length limitaion
 

I think that originally 100 feet maximum was chosen because it was believed that anything longer would somehow leave the next door houses in a sort of unwirelessed zone in other words they thought a long areal would absorb all the energy in that area

Re: Household aerial length limitaion
 

I've heard of 100 feet as the maximum length permitted by the Radio Licence.

But now the receiving licence is abolished, I wonder if that still applies?

I guess that it might have been considered at the time of abolishment (late 1960's?), and dismissed as a non-issue, on the basis that since the introduction of licences in crystal-set days and the dropping in the 1960's, long-wire aerials had all but disappeared anyway owing to advances in RF amplification.

Re: Household aerial length limitaion
 

Perhaps 100ft was chosen in the early days to limit the anti-social effects of mis-adjusted or mal-functioning TRFs as such sets would have been common then and by the 1960s this was no longer considered a significant concern?

Re: Household aerial length limitaion
 

This is what RadioRadio has to say about it Page 29 of the Third edition.

On July 5th 1919, all pre-war licences were cancelled but
the Post Office did not start to replace these until October
21st 1919 when, under pressure from the wireless societies and
clubs, they announced that informal authority could now be
granted for the use of receivers only and amateurs could reclaim
their wireless apparatus confiscated by the Post Office during
the war. Accompanying this relaxation in restrictions, the
Experimenter’s Licence (for reception only) was introduced
at lOs.Od per annum. Applicants for this new licence had to
be of British nationality and had to produce a birth certificate to that effect.
They were first required to submit a description
of the apparatus they proposed to install, and if they sought
to use thermionic valves, a diagram had to be sent showing
the circuit layout. If any applicant wanted to buy complete
factory-built apparatus (the manufacture of which was still
controlled by official permit), he was required to give full
particulars of the equipment and the name and address of the
firm from whom he bought it. There were restrictions too on
the size of the aerial used, the length being limited to 100 feet
for a single stranded wire and 140 feet for a double or multistranded wire.

So this restriction seemed to be in part a hangover from WW1 and/or the GPO being ever so protective of their monopoly.

Cheers

Mike T

Re: Household aerial length limitaion
 

So far as I can make out the 140ft length for the double or multiple wire is the total length of the wire or wires, the length of the antenna being a max. of 70ft in the case of a double wire antenna.

Lawrence.

Re: Household aerial length limitaion
 

What is a 'single stranded wire'?

Is it a stranded wire in isolation from other wires or is it a wire made from a single strand?

Re: Household aerial length limitaion
 

I think a single strand.

Re: Household aerial length limitaion
 

Which early aerials would have been made of like the overhead telephone wires of the day, along with several "egg" insulators, and a fancy lead in setup.

Re: Household aerial length limitaion
 

I've an [unrestored] Marconiphone 292 RG [1934] plus the original instruction leaflet [both are in the North]. I'm pretty sure that it recommends an aerial length over 100'-possibly 130'.

Dave W
Bexhill


[I've still not come across another 292 anywhere.]

Re: Household aerial length limitaion
 

The RBWM (Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead) planning bit of their website says "Aerials for ordinary radio and TV" are OK, I have never met an extraordinary radio wave!

Re: Household aerial length limitaion
 

Well, you can have an 'extraordinary ray' in optics, in particular in double refraction, but I don't think that occurs at radio wavelengths.

Re: Household aerial length limitaion
 

The receiving licence has not actually been abolished. It's printed in as an addendum on the TV licence, and for people without TV licences, they are assumed to have been granted one as a freebie.

So you are still bound by the terms of a licence you may not even know you posessed.

David

Re: Household aerial length limitaion
 

Do you have a link to this, as nothing in the paperwork the TV licensing have sent me in the last 15 years makes any mention of a radio license, or any conditions about receiving aerials?

Re: Household aerial length limitaion
 

To quote "The Planning Porta"l:-

"Normal domestic TV and radio aerials do not need planning permission".

It doesn't define "normal" though and the accompanying pictures show just satellite dishes and UHF yagis.

https://interactive.planningportal.co.uk/detached-house

Re: Household aerial length limitaion
 

Me too!

And it seems a bit hard to swallow, too - if somebody looks askance at a radio aerial I've erected, measures it, discovers it's 101 feet, they could say I'm in breach of the licence T's and C's I signed up to on my TV licence application form. But if I DON'T have a TV licence (which I actually don't!) then there's no record of me signing up to any T's and C's; I can't be in breach of my own non-existent agreement; and in these days of GDPR it's opt-in not opt-out.