Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Newbie SWL question: Antenna geometry
Is the length or the shape of the antenna more important?
I live in an apartment and can't put up an outside antenna. The Grundig YB400PE I just bought came with one of those little wire antennas that winds up. You attach one end to something, and spool out the antenna to the radio. It works, but no so well. I was thinking of making my own antenna out of some wire, but my apartment is of limited size. So, I was wondering if I could run it around the outline of the apartment. Maybe up at the junction of the wall and ceiling, hidden in the "joint" there. But then I got to wondering if that would defeat the purpose. Wouldn't a straight line antenna work best? And wouldn't the antenna work best it was was parallel to the "line" upon which the signal propagates? Sorry is these are dumb questions. I bought the antenna to entertain myself during the recovery period after an upcoming surgery and I want the best possible reception. Thanks in advance. |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
On Sun, 06 Jun 2004 18:28:08 -0700, Hidalgo wrote:
Is the length or the shape of the antenna more important? snip Sorry is these are dumb questions. I bought the antenna to entertain myself during the recovery period after an upcoming surgery and I want the best possible reception. Some people have used what you described with great success. There are some alternatives though... Active antenna. Also there are some nice active loop antennas. Some people have had luck throwing a thin wire out the window or conncting to the eve or rain trough of a building. There are no rules in an apt building as far as antennas go. whatever works, works, and if it does not, try something else. |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
HIDALGO,
For the Grundig Yacht Boy 400 PE Radio here are Two In-Door "Hidden" SWL Antenna Ideas: FIRST - In-Door Random Wire Antenna for the YB400. - Place one Push-Pin at the Ceiling Level directly above the YB400. - Next place a Push-Pin in each corner of the room at Ceiling Level - Leave One Foot of spare-extra Wire at the YB400. Run/Route the White "Insulated Wrapping Wire" from the YB400 up to the Ceiling and wrap one turn of the wire around the Push-Pin. Continue the Wire on to the next corner Push-Pin and wrap one turn of the wire around the Push-Pin. Complete the routing of the Wire until you have circled the room or ran out of wire. - Connect the Wire to the Grundig Yacht Boy 400 PE's Whip Antenna. NOTE: Collapse the Whip Antenna and connect the Wire directly to the Tip of the Whip Antenna. PARTS Required: { Cost Under $5 } * RadioShack Catalog #: 278-502 White 30 AWG Kynar Wire Length 50 FT (15.2m) * Five (5) Push-Pins (Use Plastic Push-Pins - NOT Metal Thumb Tacks.) TBL: This makes a fairly good In-Door "HIDDEN" Random {Folded} Wire Antenna. SECOND - In-Door [HIDDEN] "Around-the-Room" Horizontal Loop Wire Antenna.. - Using a Twin Lead as a 'balanced' Antenna Lead-In-Line. - Remove about 2" of the flat center insulation from the one end of the Twin Lead. Strip about 1" of Insulation from the two conductors at this end of the Twin Lead. Spread these two Leads apart like Arms to Form a "T"; this is your Top-T-End of the Twin Lead. - Next remove about 1" of the flat center insulation from the other end of the Twin Lead. Strip about 1/2" of Insulation from the two conductors at this end of the Twin Lead. This is your Bottom-End of the Twin Lead. - Attach the Top-T-End of the Twin Lead using three Push-Pins at the Ceiling Level directly above the Grundig Yacht Boy 400 PE. One Push-Pin under each Arm of the "T" (about 2" apart) and one about 2" down the Twin Lead. - Connect (twist) one of the exposed Twin Lead Wires to the White "Insulated Wrapping Wire" and wrap one turn of the wire around the Push-Pin. . Run/route the Wire to the next corner Push-Pin and wrap one turn of the wire around the Push-Pin. Complete the routing of the Wire until you have circled the room, and returned to the Twin Lead. Connect (twist) the other exposed Twin Lead Wires to the White "Insulated Wrapping Wire" and wrap one turn of the wire around the other Push-Pin. (This 'completes' your Loop Antenna Element.) - Connect (Soldier) the Bottom-End of the Twin Lead to the an 1/8" Mono Plug. - Plug the 1/8" Plug into the External Antenna Jack of the Grundig Yacht Boy 400 PE. PARTS Required: { Cost Under $5 } * Six to Eight Feet piece of Clear TV type 300 Ohm Twin Lead * RadioShack Catalog #: 278-502 White 30 AWG Kynar Wire Length 50 FT (15.2m) * * If this does not have to be a [Hidden] Wire then #24 Stranded Hook-Up Wire will work OK. * Seven (7) Push-Pins (Use Plastic Push-Pins - NOT Metal Thumb Tacks.) * 1/8" Mono Plug. TBL: This makes a fairly good In-Door [HIDDEN] "Around-the-Room" Horizontal Loop Wire Antenna. Since you have a Grundig Yacht Boy 400PE, you may be interested in the Grundig Yacht Boy "YB" Radios eGroup on YAHOO ! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Grundig-Yacht-Boy-Radios/ iane ~ RHF .. Some Say: On A Clear Day You Can See Forever. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Shortw...na/message/502 I BELIEVE: On A Clear Night... You Can Hear Forever and Beyond - The Beyond ! .. .. = = = "Hidalgo" wrote in message = = = news:BwPwc.24572$My6.21049@fed1read05... Is the length or the shape of the antenna more important? I live in an apartment and can't put up an outside antenna. The Grundig YB400PE I just bought came with one of those little wire antennas that winds up. You attach one end to something, and spool out the antenna to the radio. It works, but no so well. I was thinking of making my own antenna out of some wire, but my apartment is of limited size. So, I was wondering if I could run it around the outline of the apartment. Maybe up at the junction of the wall and ceiling, hidden in the "joint" there. But then I got to wondering if that would defeat the purpose. Wouldn't a straight line antenna work best? And wouldn't the antenna work best it was was parallel to the "line" upon which the signal propagates? Sorry is these are dumb questions. I bought the antenna to entertain myself during the recovery period after an upcoming surgery and I want the best possible reception. Thanks in advance. |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
Length: Longer is better.. here's a Stealth apartment Antenna & Instructions on how to build one... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ MATERIALS Some Stranded, Insulated copper wire from Radio shack Colors so it matches the bricks / outside of your building Some stick-on Cord holders One tube clear Silicone sealer glue A roll of Duct tape color of outside of apt. One Mop / Long Pole One piece of twine or string. One Small soft edged weight. PROCEDU See how far it is in between two windows of your Apt.. Measure out a piece of string this distance + ~ 6 - 8 feet. Attach a small soft edged weight to it. ( Look Outside to see no one is looking !! ) Secure curious household pets Open Both Windows. Insert mop part way out one] Close that window to secure mop handle Run over to the other window QUICK! Take the twine with the weight on it & (without risking life & limb) Toss the string over the mop sticking out the other window. Secure the end of that end of the string with a bit of slack Close that window Run over to the other window with the mop that has the twine handing down off it Pull the mop in Close the window. ( Breath deeply ) NOW.... Attach the stranded wire to the end of the string. Slightly open window Run over to the oher window. Open it & pull in string until wire / string connection is through.. Pull in enough so that wire will reach SWR Attach wire to SWR. Close window. - That's basically it. Modify as needed. You can take Square stick -on cord holders Camouflage them with magic Marker color , & Silicone glue them to the outside corners of the window, Then loop more wire ( DONT FALL OUT WHEN DOING THIS !!) around the cord holders. This makes the antenna longer. repeat for other windows..This should help lots.. ( Works for me !!) In article BwPwc.24572$My6.21049@fed1read05, "Hidalgo" writes: Subject: Newbie SWL question: Antenna geometry From: "Hidalgo" Date: Sun, 6 Jun 2004 18:28:08 -0700 Is the length or the shape of the antenna more important? I live in an apartment and can't put up an outside antenna. The Grundig YB400PE I just bought came with one of those little wire antennas that winds up. You attach one end to something, and spool out the antenna to the radio. It works, but no so well. I was thinking of making my own antenna out of some wire, but my apartment is of limited size. So, I was wondering if I could run it around the outline of the apartment. Maybe up at the junction of the wall and ceiling, hidden in the "joint" there. But then I got to wondering if that would defeat the purpose. Wouldn't a straight line antenna work best? And wouldn't the antenna work best it was was parallel to the "line" upon which the signal propagates? Sorry is these are dumb questions. I bought the antenna to entertain myself during the recovery period after an upcoming surgery and I want the best possible reception. Thanks in advance. |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
For the Grundig Yacht Boy 400 PE Radio here are Two In-Door
"Hidden" SWL Antenna Ideas: ***********rest snipped******** Hidalgo, Those are good ideas that were mentioned. I might add, and this is cheap also. Get you a pack of "cup hook assortments", you can get them ANYWHERE for about $1.29 (that's how much mine were.) There are different colors and style but they're all c-shaped screw in the wall hooks -like to hhok a cup onto.- Pick the nicest looking ones out of your package, they have like seven-ten choices x eight different styles to choose from. Go directly above your main listening area and screw one of those as high as you can to the ceiling and space them out to run as much wire as you want or need. It really beats the 'push in pins' or thumbtacks or anything like that because they'll pop out on you and if you've just had surgery you're not going to want to have to deal with that. This way, YOU pick the color and style, they all look nice and once they're screwed into the wall- they're not going anywhere (until you unscrew it out) and it'll hold the wire until YOU take it out. Good luck on the surgery and the antenna project. :-) Can't go wrong with the cup hooks. ~^Monitoring The Spectrum^~ Hammarlund HQ129X /Heathkit Q Multiplier Hammarlund HQ140X Multiple GE P-780's(GREAT BCB Radios) RCA Victor *Strato- World* RCA Victor RJC77W-K(Walnut Grain) 1942 Zenith Wave Magnet 6G 601M Cathedral/ Ross#2311/Rhapsody-MultiBand DX100/*SUPER-DELUXE Mod- DRIVEN*394/*Modded*398/399/402 OMGS Transistor Eight/Realistic 12-1451 Henry Kloss Model One/Bell+HowellSW ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Alpha Delta DX Sloper 57ft. 500ft. 12AWG. (non-terminated) 120ft. 12 AWG Long-Wire 2 Radio Shack Loop Antennas Radio Shack Amplified Antenna 30X30 DiamondLoop(six section 830pf Cap) * Diamond Loop mounted to Lazy Susan TurnTable* *21/2X2ft.FiveSpoked~Penta-Loop~PancakeLoop* ~OptimusCTR-111Cassettte Recorder~ ~Radio Shack 2Speed VOX#43-476~ ~Ramsey Speech Scrambler~ |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
*** post for FREE via your newsreader at post.newsfeed.com ***
A slinky works as well. I personally have 4 slinkies serialized (they have a grip at each end, which make it easy to attach one to another) and suspended on a rope across the ceiling of my room, in front of the window. This way, I have about 80m of wire fit on a 5m rope (a spiral neatly spaced at 1cm step). It works quite good for general broadcast listening : Romania, Bulgaria, Vatican, Turkey, India, China, Vietnan, Netherlands, Sweden , Spain, Cuba, Slovakia, Ucraine, Serbia, South Korea, Russia, ... and the list goes on. I should start collecting QSL cards :-) The secret to this indoor loaded inverted L antenna is to place a counterpoise under your bed: about 5m of wire laying down on the floor and connected to the grounding of your receiver. This solution stands up in my case, after trying many loop antennas for HF. It works quite well, and it eliminates the burden of fine tuning the antenna for each frequency. I really recommend it for SWL. Yours cordially, Nic. http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~nic/radio/radio.shtml "Hidalgo" wrote in message news:BwPwc.24572$My6.21049@fed1read05... Is the length or the shape of the antenna more important? I live in an apartment and can't put up an outside antenna. The Grundig YB400PE I just bought came with one of those little wire antennas that winds up. You attach one end to something, and spool out the antenna to the radio. It works, but no so well. I was thinking of making my own antenna out of some wire, but my apartment is of limited size. So, I was wondering if I could run it around the outline of the apartment. Maybe up at the junction of the wall and ceiling, hidden in the "joint" there. But then I got to wondering if that would defeat the purpose. Wouldn't a straight line antenna work best? And wouldn't the antenna work best it was was parallel to the "line" upon which the signal propagates? Sorry is these are dumb questions. I bought the antenna to entertain myself during the recovery period after an upcoming surgery and I want the best possible reception. Thanks in advance. -----= Posted via Newsfeed.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =----- http://www.newsfeed.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! -----== 100,000 Groups! - 19 Servers! - Unlimited Download! =----- |
Reply |
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Forum | |||
Newbie low-brain question fm stereo broadcast antenna | Antenna | |||
Newbie Ham question: Antenna (Diamond X-50) | General | |||
Colinear 2 meter antenna question | Antenna | |||
Yaesu FT-857D questions | Equipment | |||
Yet Another Antenna Question | Shortwave |