"Martineau Gauda" wrote in
et:

Hi,

My daughter has taken an interest in short-wave and I am going to
purchase the Icom R-75.

The problem is that we live in the Cleveland OH area in a 3rd floor
condo and cannot place an outside antenna.

Without a good outside antenna is this venture doomed to failure and
if an inside wire antenna is used what kind of SW or AM distant
stations should be readable with such an arrangement in this area.

Thanks

Martineau Gauda





When I was younger and lived in apartments,
I use to make antenna’s from very small gauge magnet wire.
Radio Shack item # 278-1345 or such, it is as small as thread.
I used plastic push pins as insulators/fastening posts.
Pushed 4 of the plastic push-pins in the top corners of the room
ceiling, and had two more plastic push-pins in-line with the others,
right above where my radio was setting, and used as end terminators for
the loop antenna in this case.(start one end of the wire on one of the
terminal pins and run the magnet wire around each pin, and finally
connect to the other terminal pin, should have a square loop of wire
when done) Then use coax, or twin lead wire for the feed-line, from the
terminal connectors to the radio. You could fasten hookup clips to the
feeder ends, to clip to each end of the antenna. You could make a
dipole, by pushing plastic push-pins in the wall nearest the radio, at
the wall corners, down a inch or so from the ceiling, and two more
push-pins dead center of the same wall. You wrap a length of magnet wire
from the two left push-pins, and a length of magnet wire to the right
two pins, you now have a dipole antenna. You can switch between your
loop antenna, and your dipole antenna, by simply switching the clips on
your feed-line, to either the terminal pins on your loop antenna or your
dipole. You could make different Rhombic antennas the same way using two
different walls for the legs of the antenna, and connecting the feeder
at the corner, where the two legs terminate. If you do not have much
electrical noise in the apartment, this has always worked quite well in
my case. Having an antenna preselecor/tuner/amp is nice to have in this
case also. The smaller magnet wire is so small it is hardly noticeable
visually.


Kruppt