Kristinn:

If you are willing to run lots of power into the test antenna at your
station, then a simple remotely located whip will do. But, if you are going
to look at elevation angle of emission rather than ground wave only, then
you will find that you need the equivalent of a full professional antenna
range to get repeatable data. Most non-professional configurations show
only +/- 3 dB of repeatability, so 1 or 2 dB improvements in antennas are
invisible.

--
Crazy George
Remove NO and SPAM from return address
"Kristinn Andersen" wrote in message
om...
Does anyone have a suggestion for constructing a simple, compact,
receive-only antenna, that covers reasonably well the HF range (1,8 to
30 MHz)? My plan is keep such an antenna as a constant reference when
I am experimenting with the "real" antennas at my station. Comparing
signal strenghts on the antennas over some time would at least give me
a reference on whether directivity in certain directions was improving
or not, when replacing one antenna with another.

The antenna would have the following characteristics:

- Simple (home-made, inexpensive, preferably not using any pre-amps).
- Small (not taking up space among my other antennas, non-intrusive).
- Receive-only (little need for elaborate matching, power handling).
- Connected through a coax, which should not pick up the RX signals.
- Broadband (preferably 1,8-30 MHz).
- Omnidirectional (or reasonably so, don't want any sharp nulls).
- Receive, to some extent, vertical and horizonal polarization.
- (Any other characteristics that should be included?)

I have thought of using a short whip or a loop for this (say, 1m/3ft
max. dimensions), but these both are rather selective in terms of
polarization and directivity.

Any suggestions or comments?

73 de Kristinn, TF3KX