|
long wire AM antenna
Trying to improve my reception from Chicago with baseball season
approaching. I'm about 100 miles sse in Indiana. I ran about 75' RG-6 from my radio across the attic and outdoors to a tree. I had maybe 10 extra feet of coax so I wrapped it around the tree. I strung about 50' of #9 steel wire between 2 trees going east/west about 15' above ground and attached the copper conductor to it. I terminated the coax shield at the tree with a ground rod. At the radio I attached the shield to the ground terminal and the center cu conductor to the other am external antenna terminal. It greatly improved my reception I get all the major Chicago sports channels, but the one I was most interested in 670 is the worst. What all did I do wrong and what can I do to improve 670? |
long wire AM antenna
On Feb 21, 4:04*pm, "Jeff D" wrote:
Trying to improve my reception from Chicago with baseball season approaching. I'm about 100 miles sse in Indiana. I ran about 75' RG-6 from my radio across the attic and outdoors to a tree. I had maybe 10 extra feet of coax so I wrapped it around the tree. I strung about 50' of #9 steel wire between 2 trees going east/west about 15' above ground and attached the copper conductor to it. I terminated the coax shield at the tree with a ground rod. At the radio I attached the shield to the ground terminal *and the center cu conductor to the other am external antenna terminal. It greatly improved my reception I get all the major Chicago sports channels, but the one I was most interested in 670 is the worst. What all did I do wrong and what can I do to improve 670? When I was a kid I tried to pick up a 50Kwatt station that was about 100 miles away. I lliked the station because it always played the music I liked while none of the local stations did. If I was 30 miles south or east of my location I could pick it up fine on the car radio. No antenna I tried worked reliably from my home. It was just too far away. Jimmie Jimmie |
long wire AM antenna
Jeff,
How about finding a circuit for a pre amplifier for the MW band and building it, I am sure that will make a difference, but if there is a strong or a local station, it may swamp the receiver, but then you could construct a trap. Over here one can receive AM stations at that distance during the day, but I guess it depends on how my RF crud there is in your area.. Two questions, what is the power of the station you are trying to receive? What type of a receiver are you using? Another thought is to decrease your coax length and increase the amount of bare wire, more wire in the air the better. John "Jeff D" wrote in message ... Trying to improve my reception from Chicago with baseball season approaching. I'm about 100 miles sse in Indiana. I ran about 75' RG-6 from my radio across the attic and outdoors to a tree. I had maybe 10 extra feet of coax so I wrapped it around the tree. I strung about 50' of #9 steel wire between 2 trees going east/west about 15' above ground and attached the copper conductor to it. I terminated the coax shield at the tree with a ground rod. At the radio I attached the shield to the ground terminal and the center cu conductor to the other am external antenna terminal. It greatly improved my reception I get all the major Chicago sports channels, but the one I was most interested in 670 is the worst. What all did I do wrong and what can I do to improve 670? |
long wire AM antenna
On 2/22/2010 3:38 AM, wrote:
On Feb 21, 3:04 pm, "Jeff wrote: Trying to improve my reception from Chicago with baseball season approaching. I'm about 100 miles sse in Indiana. I ran about 75' RG-6 from my radio across the attic and outdoors to a tree. I had maybe 10 extra feet of coax so I wrapped it around the tree. I strung about 50' of #9 steel wire between 2 trees going east/west about 15' above ground and attached the copper conductor to it. I terminated the coax shield at the tree with a ground rod. At the radio I attached the shield to the ground terminal and the center cu conductor to the other am external antenna terminal. It greatly improved my reception I get all the major Chicago sports channels, but the one I was most interested in 670 is the worst. What all did I do wrong and what can I do to improve 670? I suspect you would be much better off using a small receiving loop. But there are many variables such as time of day, etc. For instance good reception of that station 100 miles away should be a piece of cake in the daytime if you used a loop, and using ground wave reception. Hello, and a loop should be worthwhile. I've seen folks selling MW receiving loops at Hamfests that consisted of a requisite number of turns installed inside a plastic (mini hula-hoop) loop with a variable capacitor for tuning. These loops were intended to work with a portable radio (the radio is placed inside the loop). It is remarkable how the sensitivity of a cheap portable radio is increased by the addition of a simple tuned loop. This configuration should allow usable reception of a 50kW AM station 100 mi. distant. BTW, the WSCR AM 670 website indicates they also stream on the web. Sincerely, and 73s from N4GGO, -- John Wood (Code 5520) e-mail: Naval Research Laboratory 4555 Overlook Avenue, SW Washington, DC 20375-5337 |
long wire AM antenna
On Feb 21, 3:04*pm, "Jeff D" wrote:
Trying to improve my reception from Chicago with baseball season approaching. I'm about 100 miles sse in Indiana. snip What all did I do wrong and what can I do to improve 670? ________________ WSCR is a "Class A" 50 kW, omnidirectional station with no other stations close enough geographically to cause co-channel interference to their daytime groundwave signal even 150 miles from their transmit site (at 41 56 North, 88 04 West). They use a 182-degree vertical radiator. The FCC's groundwave propagation curves for WSCR show that about a 2 millivolt/meter field intensity should exist at your location maybe 110 miles away, over the 8 mS/m ground conductivity for that path. Normally that field intensity should provide fairly noise-free reception even on an inexpensive, indoor clock radio. Other things equal, your daytime reception quality should be nearly identical for WSCR and WGN (720 kHz). You might try using a vertically-polarized receive antenna, as that is the polarization being broadcast. It doesn't need to be high above the earth - in fact the lower end of it can be nearly touching the earth and connect to the center conductor of your coax, with the coax shield going to a good r-f ground. The required protection from nearby lightning strikes should be used with it if it installed outside. The loop antennas suggested by others may work well, as they are vertically polarized for the E-field (as is the loopstick of a typical consumer-type AM broadcast receiver). One other possibility is that a local noise source produces more interference for you on 670 kHz than on the other channels you're trying to receive. That will take some investigation. Good luck, RF |
long wire AM antenna
On Feb 22, 5:51*am, Richard Fry wrote:
The loop antennas suggested by others may work well, as they are vertically polarized for the E-field (as is the loopstick of a typical consumer-type AM broadcast receiver). To correct myself, loopsticks respond to the magnetic field of an EM wave -- which, for vertical polarization, lie in the horizontal plane. |
long wire AM antenna
In article 1ehgn.267718$o06.4061@en-nntp-
08.dc1.easynews.com, says... Trying to improve my reception from Chicago with baseball season approaching. I'm about 100 miles sse in Indiana. I ran about 75' RG-6 from my radio across the attic and outdoors to a tree. I had maybe 10 extra feet of coax so I wrapped it around the tree. I strung about 50' of #9 steel wire between 2 trees going east/west about 15' above ground and attached the copper conductor to it. I terminated the coax shield at the tree with a ground rod. At the radio I attached the shield to the ground terminal and the center cu conductor to the other am external antenna terminal. It greatly improved my reception I get all the major Chicago sports channels, but the one I was most interested in 670 is the worst. What all did I do wrong and what can I do to improve 670? Try disconnecting the ground rod at the tree and connect the braid of the coax to the antenna input. Ground the radio. --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
long wire AM antenna
"Jitt" wrote in message m... In article 1ehgn.267718$o06.4061@en-nntp- 08.dc1.easynews.com, says... Trying to improve my reception from Chicago with baseball season approaching. I'm about 100 miles sse in Indiana. I ran about 75' RG-6 from my radio across the attic and outdoors to a tree. I had maybe 10 extra feet of coax so I wrapped it around the tree. I strung about 50' of #9 steel wire between 2 trees going east/west about 15' above ground and attached the copper conductor to it. I terminated the coax shield at the tree with a ground rod. At the radio I attached the shield to the ground terminal and the center cu conductor to the other am external antenna terminal. It greatly improved my reception I get all the major Chicago sports channels, but the one I was most interested in 670 is the worst. What all did I do wrong and what can I do to improve 670? Try disconnecting the ground rod at the tree and connect the braid of the coax to the antenna input. Ground the radio. --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- Thanks for all the replies and help. I did try grounding at the radio but I disconnected the shield at the radio not out at the outdoor connection. I'll try Jitt's suggestion. I've goggled around on constructing a loop antenna and it looks do-able for me so I may try that. Most of the information I used to construct the long wire came from this link http://www.hard-core-dx.com/nordicdx...b/coupler.html the author also describes a coupler which I may attempt if I can scrounge the parts unless anyone knows if something like that is available commercially. Also could somebody recommend a lighting arrestor that would work with the RG-6 male and female connectors where the long wire connects to the coax. |
long wire AM antenna
Jeff D wrote:
Thanks for all the replies and help. I did try grounding at the radio but I disconnected the shield at the radio not out at the outdoor connection. I'll try Jitt's suggestion. I've goggled around on constructing a loop antenna and it looks do-able for me so I may try that. Most of the information I used to construct the long wire came from this link http://www.hard-core-dx.com/nordicdx...b/coupler.html the author also describes a coupler which I may attempt if I can scrounge the parts unless anyone knows if something like that is available commercially. Also could somebody recommend a lighting arrestor that would work with the RG-6 male and female connectors where the long wire connects to the coax. Fiddling with the long wire, couplers, and tuners will change both the signal and noise by the same amount, which won't help you at all. You might as well turn your volume control up and down. A loop, however, gives you the ability to improve the signal to noise ratio by decreasing the noise from some directions, so you can hear the station better. Roy Lewallen, W7EL |
| All times are GMT +1. The time now is 02:41 AM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
RadioBanter.com