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Whats the best antenna for listening to shortwave?

C

Cobra 29

Guest
Is it a piece of wire cut to the same length as the freq. that your listening to? does it help to put tension on it? does it matter weather the wire is insulated or not? how 'bout pencil rod, would that be better? also anyone tried using parabolics? old satelite dishes are pretty cheap.

Thanks for reading, right now I'm still putting together my kit radio for 40 meters.(hopefully it will work)


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Re: Whats the best antenna for listening to shortwave

Is it a piece of wire cut to the same length as the freq. that your listening to?

-- Not necessarily -- for shortwave. The longer the better.



does it help to put tension on it?

-- Not really, but it shouldn't be in a mangled ball either!



does it matter weather the wire is insulated or not?

-- No, but insulation will help protect it from the elements.



how 'bout pencil rod, would that be better?

-- Not really, wire will work just fine.



also anyone tried using parabolics?

-- I don't think that would work to well. Larger dishes for lower frequencies. Use wire!



-- Don




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Re: Whats the best antenna for listening to shortwave

Thanks for the reply,

so I guess just a really long piece of wire streched out across the trees, sounds almost too easy <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/smile.gif ALT=":)"> a couple hundred feet ought to do it, too bad we don't have cows anymore, I'd try hooking it up to the electric fence, (turned off of course) <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/smile.gif ALT=":)">

Thanks again




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Some very general 'rules of thumb' (ROT).

The lower the frequency, the lower the antenna can be. Not -should- be, just -can- be. Higher is always better, to some ridiculous point.

'Close' counts. As in, an antenna that's almost resonant for the particular frequency being listened to is typically 'better' than one that isn't very close to 'resonant'. Huge amount of variable differences in that. That 'close' also depends on the freqeuncy of interest and if the antenna is a multiple of something resonant, sort of.

Like for any use, almost anything will work to some extent. Those 'variables' include where it is, what it is, how high, etc, etc. Making any particular antenna 'better' is another one of those things that can get ridiculous real fast.

Fences DO work as antennas. But not with the fence charger turned on. So do railroad tracks (long ones!), believe that or not.

If it can conduct electricity it can be an antenna. Doesn't matter if it's graphite drawn on paper, or made of gold. Bunch of possible 'miracles'/nightmares with that one! Fun to play with.

Gotta get ready for work or I'd add a bunch of other stuff.
- 'Doc

(and that other stuff doesn't include 'miracles' so don't hold your breath.)
 
Some interresting stuff. I want to hear more. I am interrested in listening to SW using my 7000 but all I got right now is an 10 meter gp and a 2 meter gp antenna. I want to put a wire up soon and listen in.
AP
 
Stick up the longest wire that is practical and if you want full coverage from 160m and up, that would be a 270' dipole. Fed with ladder/window line to a manual tuner and you can cover 160m through 10m with the best emphasis on 80m and 40m performance.

If you have the room for a loop of roughly 540' of wire, do that, it will be an even quieter receiving antenna.

A tuner on the wire is key unless you put up one resonant wire per band.
 
but the long wire stretched out is directional, right? is there an antenna that allows omnidirectional receive? like a straight stick? thanx.
 
Make it a dipole, fed in the center and it will be less directional unless you put it up very high in the air, then it will be bi-directional.
 
The best shortwave antenna I ever had was a 660 foot long wire about 20 feet high. :drool: It worked really well down into the AM broadcast and longwave bands. Down there I could pull out little 1 and 5 Kw stations in Central America.On 20m it started to show some gain and worked quite well with 100 watts into Japan on several occasions. (y) Put up a wire as long as you can and as high as you can within reason and it should work fine.
 
And if this antenna is only for listening, no transmitting, don't worry about 'tuning' it. Receivers are much less 'picky' than transmitters and hardly care whats connected to it impedance wise.
Antennas are very seldom very directional at less than about 1/4 or 1/2 wave length above ground... except for directional antennas of course. The typical 'wire' antenna, even a 'long wire', isn't going to be directional at all at less than the 'optimum' height above ground, so for anything down around the broadcast band, that means omnidirectional until you get to something like 400 feet high (+/- a little). I really wish I had to worry about that!
In general, as already stated, the longer and higher the better. Higher being slightly 'better' than just longer. But the best one for you is the one that fits your circumstances.
- 'Doc
 
A maybe dumb ? I've wondered about for a bit.

If an RX antennas role is to "catch" signal, why wouldn't a large section of expanded metal or a web of wire be best?

The bigger the "net" the larger the "catch"?
 

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