On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 11:21:29 -0700, Robert Smts wrote:
Frnak McKenney wrote:
--snip--
On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 22:35:29 -0700, Robert Smts wrote:
Frnak McKenney wrote:
I'm in Richmond, Virginia and I'm trying to noticeably improve my
reception of WWV's 10MHz signal from Fort Collins, Colorado.
--snip--

Frank, can't you erect anything outside at all? A 10 metre dipole,
is after all, only about 5 metres long. And if you can't do that,
what kind of attic do you have? If your house is oriented
correctly, you could even build a three element wire yagi pointed
west inside the attic.
--snip--
I definitely think I'm missing something, but then, I haven't really
made it that far into the Antenna Handbook.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestion.

You're welcome. Your characterisation of the antenna as above is correct,
and hopefully your attic is correctly oriented. Of course if you can put it
outside, fixed wire beams are often very useful.

If I'm following the ARRL handbook correctly, I want the elements
laid out _across_ the incoming wavefront. For Fort Collins to
Richmond, that is, going west to east, that would mean I'd want to
string the wires/elements north-south. Naturally (per Murphy, the
patron saint of Data Processing) my house is oriented E-W. Which
does still, as you point out, leave the possibility of building
something outdoors.

Still, my current indoor loop seems to be picking up a nice strong
signal. It was upright when I first started testing, but it wound up
being laid flat at some point in the past few days -- about the time
I discovered that I had been mis-tuining it. Wonder which had more
effect: my changes, or atmospherics? grin!

Anyway, thank you for your time and suggestions. I did some looking
around on the 'web for introductory material to help me understand
the ARRL Antenna Handbook and stumbled onto these:

Antenna Newcomers and the Language of Antennas
http://www.cebik.com/tales/nc.html

Antennas from the Ground Up
http://www.cebik.com/gup/groundup.html

Some really nice propagation plots. Now, if there were just some
simple way of figuring out which way the antenna is oriented
relative to the plots... "It's an imperfect universe" grin!


Frank
--
Anyone who is not genuinely addicted to the search for knowledge
is unlikely to have the psychological energy to be a true scholar
in any field. But in history this work clearly resembles more
that of a detective than that of a scientist -- a search for and
judgment of particular evidence rather than a repeatable
experiment. The detective side of historical research needs
skill, background, and intuition.
-- Robert Conquest, "The Dragons of Expectation"
--
Frank McKenney, McKenney Associates
Richmond, Virginia / (804) 320-4887
Munged E-mail: frank uscore mckenney ayut minds pring dawt cahm (y'all)