Cecil, W5DXP wrote:
"Beverage antennas are highly directional."

Living in Portugal in the 1950`s, I used a Beverage antenna to listen to
the CBS Evening News from WCBS in New York, and WWL in New Orleans.
Whenever one station faded, I just rocked the dial and the other station
would be there. Portugal is on Greenwich time so the Evening News was
around midnight local time. By then, most of the Europeans had signed
off.

All you must have for a Beverage antenna is a long wire, say 2
wavelengths long, aimed at the targeted broadcaster.

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI

On Thu, 10 May 2007 14:54:03 GMT, "no spam" wrote:

Simple for you. My electronic education is limited to some high school and
college physics and some 'playing' on my on. IOW, I know a cap isn't
something you wear on your head but 'maximum mesh' sounds like either the
gears in your transmission are working very well or your girl friend is
wearing something sexy.

Sorry about your limitations. Sounds like you will have some
difficulty.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

"Beverage antennas are highly directional."

Living in Portugal in the 1950`s, I used a Beverage antenna to listen to
the CBS Evening News from WCBS in New York, and WWL in New Orleans.
Whenever one station faded, I just rocked the dial and the other station
would be there. Portugal is on Greenwich time so the Evening News was
around midnight local time. By then, most of the Europeans had signed
off.

All you must have for a Beverage antenna is a long wire, say 2
wavelengths long, aimed at the targeted broadcaster.

For 690 KHz that would be 2,850 feet of wire, just over 1/2 a mile of wire.

"no spam" ) writes:
"Beverage antennas are highly directional."

Living in Portugal in the 1950`s, I used a Beverage antenna to listen to
the CBS Evening News from WCBS in New York, and WWL in New Orleans.
Whenever one station faded, I just rocked the dial and the other station
would be there. Portugal is on Greenwich time so the Evening News was
around midnight local time. By then, most of the Europeans had signed
off.

All you must have for a Beverage antenna is a long wire, say 2
wavelengths long, aimed at the targeted broadcaster.

For 690 KHz that would be 2,850 feet of wire, just over 1/2 a mile of wire.


WHen he said "all you need" I was tempted to add "and space for that antenna".

Of course, some people are lucky. You do hear of people doing really well
with really long wire antennas, and presumably they have such great success
because few have the space to have similar antennas.

There was a guy in Australia forty years ago, Ray Knaughton (I'm sure
I've misspelled that), who did moonbounce with rhombic antennas. He
lived in the outback, so he had the space. Got enough gain to overcome
Australia's 150W power limit at the time (I think it was that low). He
had enough space for putting up high gain rhombics for various VHF bands.
The big problem was that since they weren't steerable, he had a big limit
on when he could do moonbounce, since the moon wasn't in the right place
most of the time.

Michael VE2BVW

Living in Portugal in the 1950`s, I used a Beverage antenna to listen to
the CBS Evening News from WCBS in New York, and WWL in New Orleans.
Whenever one station faded, I just rocked the dial and the other station
would be there. Portugal is on Greenwich time so the Evening News was
around midnight local time. By then, most of the Europeans had signed
off.

All you must have for a Beverage antenna is a long wire, say 2
wavelengths long, aimed at the targeted broadcaster.

For 690 KHz that would be 2,850 feet of wire, just over 1/2 a mile of
wire.


WHen he said "all you need" I was tempted to add "and space for that
antenna".

Of course, some people are lucky. You do hear of people doing really well
with really long wire antennas, and presumably they have such great
success
because few have the space to have similar antennas.

In TN I had 25 acres and ran a 200+ ft long wire which was enough to pick up
the Nashville stations. I once connected my antenna to the electric fence
wire (after disconnecting the charger) that ran around about 1/2 of the
place. Didn't do much.

Here I have 16 acres which means I could, in theory, run about 2,000 ft of
wire. Still I was thinking of something a little smaller.

That is really simple cap=capacitor mesh=how much the plates overlap
On May 10, 7:54 am, "no spam" wrote:
"Richard Clark" wrote in message

...





On Wed, 09 May 2007 17:35:31 GMT, "no spam" wrote:

I'm looking for plans for a simple AM antenna to connect to my stereo to
replace the little loop antenna that came with it. In the past I have
used
long wires but they are not very directional.

I have found some fairly good plans online for what looks like wire wound
around a box but all of them seem to have potentiometer in the mix
somewhere. It would be very little problem to build an aimable 18 to
even
48 inch frame.

I only have two AM stations I'd like to come in clearer (690 KHz and 1440
KHz). Would it be possible to make a 'box' with one 'tap' for 690 and one
for 1440 then just connect one or the other the radio? How long would be
wires need to be and how would I feed it into the connections on the radio
(coax)?

The simplest would be to find a variable capacitor from a derelict
radio. The tuning range and size will force you to build the right
size coil - which is vastly simpler to building the coil first and
then finding the right variable capacitor. Using a cap from a
derelict radio will give you the right minimum to maximum range
variation (often with a max in the region of 360 pF just in case you
cannot find a derelict radio). With the capacitor in its maximum mesh
(or nearly so), you wind the box antenna until you find enough
windings to peak the lowest frequency signal. The upper frequency
signal should also peak when you open up the meshed plates. Mark the
two peaks' positions of the variable cap's knob setting.

Simple for you. My electronic education is limited to some high school and
college physics and some 'playing' on my on. IOW, I know a cap isn't
something you wear on your head but 'maximum mesh' sounds like either the
gears in your transmission are working very well or your girl friend is
wearing something sexy.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

no spam wrote:
"For 690 KHz that would be 2850 feet of wire, just over 1/2 mile of
wire."

Something like that. The site was a shortwave broadcast plant that had a
rhombic aimed at New York for last ditch program relay in case all else
failed. It was located at a far corner of many acres to be well out of
the shortwave field. As we were not last ditching it, I borrowed its
open wire transmission line, shorted it and fed it to my medium wave
receiver. It worked like a champ.

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI

"no spam" wrote in message
. net...
I'm looking for plans for a simple AM antenna to connect to my stereo
to
replace the little loop antenna that came with it. In the past I have
used
long wires but they are not very directional.

I have found some fairly good plans online for what looks like wire
wound
around a box but all of them seem to have potentiometer in the mix
somewhere. It would be very little problem to build an aimable 18 to
even
48 inch frame.

I only have two AM stations I'd like to come in clearer (690 KHz and
1440
KHz). Would it be possible to make a 'box' with one 'tap' for 690 and
one
for 1440 then just connect one or the other the radio? How long would
be
wires need to be and how would I feed it into the connections on the
radio
(coax)?


Like Richard says, it's easier to find an old cap, and build the loop
around the cap. The old analog dial stereo receivers have some of
the best variables for this purpose. Most are multi gang caps, which
often can approach 1000 pf or more if you tie all the gangs together.
This can be handy for wide freq use as you can use switches and
switch gangs in or out of the circuit to change freq coverage.
Most stereo caps also had a few small gangs with low pf values,

good stuff cut)

Almost anything is easy if you know how to do it. I was looking for
something really simple w/o any electronic parts in it. I posted several
URLs with plans for building a loop like the one you are talking about. I
naively thought I might just be able to take piece of wire that was a
fraction of the wavelength of the freq and wrap it around a frame and aim
it
in the correct direction. But I didn't want to do all the work only to
find
out it wouldn't work.

"no spam" wrote in message
. net...
I'm looking for plans for a simple AM antenna to connect to my stereo
to
replace the little loop antenna that came with it. In the past I have
used
long wires but they are not very directional.

I have found some fairly good plans online for what looks like wire
wound
around a box but all of them seem to have potentiometer in the mix
somewhere. It would be very little problem to build an aimable 18 to
even
48 inch frame.

I only have two AM stations I'd like to come in clearer (690 KHz and
1440
KHz). Would it be possible to make a 'box' with one 'tap' for 690 and
one
for 1440 then just connect one or the other the radio? How long would
be
wires need to be and how would I feed it into the connections on the
radio
(coax)?


Like Richard says, it's easier to find an old cap, and build the loop
around the cap. The old analog dial stereo receivers have some of
the best variables for this purpose. Most are multi gang caps, which
often can approach 1000 pf or more if you tie all the gangs together.
This can be handy for wide freq use as you can use switches and
switch gangs in or out of the circuit to change freq coverage.
Most stereo caps also had a few small gangs with low pf values,

good stuff cut)

Almost anything is easy if you know how to do it. I was looking for
something really simple w/o any electronic parts in it. I posted several
URLs with plans for building a loop like the one you are talking about. I
naively thought I might just be able to take piece of wire that was a
fraction of the wavelength of the freq and wrap it around a frame and aim
it
in the correct direction. But I didn't want to do all the work only to
find
out it wouldn't work.


OK: Start small. Identify a decent ground reasonably near the radio.
Stretch as much wire as you can on a line away from the radio. Tie off
(secure) the distant end as high and clear as possible.

At the radio wrap, the free end of the wire around the radio several times
near where the internal antenna is located. (The exact location can be
easily found by any of several clever methods, not counting taking the back
off.) Strip the insulation off the free end and attach it to the ground. I
expect you will be gratified by the increase in signal strength. Caution,
if you run this antenna near operating electrical/electronic equipment, you
may pick up interference that will negate the increase in the desired
signal. You will have to play with this. You may have to endure three or
four unimpressive performances before you have that one kick-ass success
that makes you let out a whoop. Life's like that.