October 4th 09, 08:36 PM
posted to rec.radio.shortwave
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external usenet poster
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Jun 2008
Posts: 14
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type/length of wire and connectors for external antenna?
"dave" wrote in message
...
Wimpie wrote:
On 2 oct, 20:13, JimK wrote:
I'd like to try an external antenna, but one was not included with my
G5. What type of wire should I get (stranded, solid, gauge,
insulated...), and do I just solder it to the pos or neg lead of a
miniplug to go into the ext antenna receptacle?
Thanks....
Jim
Hello Jim,
Every type of metal wire will work for you situation (solid, stranded,
plasticized galvanized washing line, etc).
Most modern SW receivers with internal antennas are very sensitive,
but cannot handle strong signals, so longer will not always be
better.
To reduce the interference from electronic equipment close to your SW
receiver, you may put a coaxial cable between the actual antenna and
the receiver. You can use any type of 75, 90 or 50 Ohms cable. The
center conductor goes to the center pin of the mini plug and the bread
goes to the ground of the mini plug.
The antenna side of the cable needs some clarification. The antenna
wire goes to the center conductor of the cable, the braid should be
connected to ground outside your house (or at least far away from
where you expect or have interference).
What is "ground"? When you live in an apartment, it can be the metal
fence or railing of the balcony. You can use a ground rod or any
other large metallic structure outside your house. Connect the braid
of the cable directly to the ground structure. Do not insert a long
run of wire between the metal structure and the braid of the coaxial
cable.
For some form of static / impulse protection you may add a 1… 3 uH
inductor between the center conductor and the braid. Note that this
inductor will attenuate AM broadcast band reception.
As others said, you have to experiment with the orientation of the
wire to get best signal/noise ratio. When you are very limited in
space for the wire, you may use some 5..10 feet of chicken mesh as
reception antenna or use more wires in a fan shape.
Best regards,
Wim
PA3DJS
www.tetech.nl
please remove abc when using PM.
A couple clip leads on the whip helps sometimes. If you want to use a
real antenna, you need a real radio.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_receiver
That brought back some memories !
bmc
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