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What the Helen of Troy is This?
I’m not sure if the photos do it justice, but this antenna from an otherwise normal looking Brookland house is absolutely enormous. Is it used for regular television reception?
Category: What the Helen of Troy is This?
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Sal
2:27am
They sell gyros so I already know exactly how bad this pizza is going to be. 
1:40am
I'm so glad you posted this - I hadn't thought to donate to the rebuilding. I just...
Capital Helmetshare
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Anonymous
11:49pm
looks like a good space. i wonder why people open businesses like this and don't succeed.
11:24pm
The no-turn-on-red right turns on Logan are completely ridiculous.
Probably a ham radio/scanner antenna. If you look at cars parked nearby there is likely one with “amateur radio” plates.
That’s my guess, too.
yep, that’s a ham radio antenna. my dad is a ham radio operator and my parents have 2 or 3 of those on the roof of their house. my mom can’t stand it!
My dad is Extra class, and we have one special license plate with his call sign. Mom was at her wits end with all the tech.
We got him a nice camera for Christmas and a broken film camera for him to fix, and I haven’t seen any of the Ham stuff in 2 years.
He still made me renew my license when it came due to expire though.
my dad tried SO hard to make me get a license when i was a kid. bought me a book and everything. i tried to like it but… no dice, haha. he also tried to teach me morse code. even bigger fail.
My Parent’s house has a MUCH bigger one.
Good morning.
This is of course a dipole Amateur Radio Antenna used for communicating with transmitters and receivers over Ham Radio frequencies at the high end spectrum of the AM broadcast band.
Prior to the advent of the telephone and the internet, Amateur Radio Operators (Hams) were and remain reliable first responders during natural disasters, calamities and emergencies when regular commercial communication mediums break down.
FCC licensing of Amateur Radio Operators required proficiency in Morse Code (CW) at minimums of five words per minute as part of your exams.
Amateur Radio is so much more than an avocation/hobby with a rich contributive long history of volunteer service and civic duty within a reliable communication medium the world over. Ham Radio has no borders. I knew a Ham who once communicated with astronauts.
On the rare occurrence of a cell phone drop because of close proximity to an Amateur Radio station transmitting; they are not interfering with the cell, the cell is interfering with the Ham, a long, well established and vital medium of communication and civil defense.
This is classified as a beam antenna, not a dipole.
Also, I agree it is used for amateur radio (or possibly CB), as you can notice the rotor on the base of the antenna. That would be used to rotate the antenna appropriately to get better reception.
Much to the chagrin of traditionalists, I think the Morse Code requirement has been dropped from some classes of amateur licenses.
Only for Tech, which is my license. Even when I took my test (a long time ago) I didn’t need to know code at all. They had Tech plus and Novice then that required code, and General and Extra still do.
Nerd Alert!
As has been previously stated, this is a house with hams living in it! As a young girl, I assisted in the erection (no giggles, please) of several antennas at my dad’s friend’s houses. I’m not sure any were dipoles, though.
I’m impressed that so many of you know so much about this technology and its history. Thanks for the interesting info.
There’s a really awesome antenna array on the roof of the first house just East of Cesar Chavez (Middle?) School on the South side of Kenyon St between Georgia and Sherman. Totally worth checking out.
It’s a super CB radio antenna.