Random wire vs ANLP1
 

Today I started experimenting with listening antennas. My goal is to find something I can pack in my truck and set up deep in the heart of baja for weather nets. My first purchase was an ANLP1 active antenna and that works great because right now I'm using a G5 portable radio which like the ANLP1 has a mini Jack connector. However I'm making a big upgrade in the radio departmnet (probably a aor7030) so I wanted to start testing against the ANLP1 to get some antenna intel and a random wire was the obvious first step. At first glance the random wire seems to work a little better than the ANLP1. At times the wire seems to pull in more signal and at times it's almost exactly the same. The wire is 100 feet long and hanging about 30 feet up. The ANLP1 is about 20 feet up. So I have some questions for all you folks who know lots about this stuff. Thanks for any info you can share.

Is this a suprising result? I kinda thought the active antenna would outperform the wire.

Will a tuned mutliband really be that much better?

If you were going to make an antenna that's relatively easy to store and set up with the goal of getting some
fun radio stations and a handfull of sideband stations what would you opt for? I would define easy as raising a 30ft guyed mast as relatively easy. A 140 foot multiband wire antenna off that would be pushing the limits if not too much space.

And finally, will the reception of the ANLP1 increase very much if it's 30 feet up?

Thanks for your time helping out a rookie. I'm slowly being sucked in!

Random wire vs ANLP1
 

On Sun, 7 Nov 2010 01:46:03 +0000, Bajamatic
wrote:

Is this a suprising result? I kinda thought the active antenna would
outperform the wire.

You don't tell enough specifics to judge your experience. Frequency,
time of day, antenna orientation all play significant factors.

However, as you are going into a desert location (or at least a very
much less populated area), you are going to have less noise to contend
with, and less interfering signals (out of band signals like AM
stations can seriously de-sensitize your receiver). All this bodes
well for a simple wire antenna (and not necessarily goliath 100
footers). Any additional equipment would be an antenna tuner (a very
cheap version of what Ham radio operators use for transmitters - so
you won't need those power/SWR meters) and some form of ground - if
only another wire trailing along the ground.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

Random wire vs ANLP1
 

On Nov 6, 7:46*pm, Bajamatic
wrote:


Is this a suprising result? *I kinda thought the active antenna would
outperform the wire.

Sounds normal to me. The loop on the active antenna is
very small. Not a heck of a lot for the preamp to work with.


Will a tuned mutliband really be that much better?

Not if you are just receiving.

If you were going to make an antenna that's relatively easy to store and
set up with the goal of getting some
fun radio stations and a handfull of sideband stations what would you
opt for?

I use dipoles fed parallel from coax. But I transmit..

*I would define easy as raising a 30ft guyed mast as relatively
easy. A 140 foot multiband wire antenna off that would be pushing the
limits if not too much space.


Would be overkill for receiving.

And finally, will the reception of the ANLP1 increase very much if it's
30 feet up?

Not for most signals. Only if they were line of sight.


Thanks for your time helping out a rookie. *I'm slowly being sucked in!

--
Bajamatic

If you are receiving, you really don't even need a feedline for
random wire antennas. So I'd just take a roll of wire and throw it
up to match the site. Heck, take both of them if you have the
room. But if I had to choose one, I'd take the wire.
Even 50 feet should be plenty. And it doesn't have to be high
off the ground either.

I camp quite a bit, and have often transmitted with dipoles as low
as five or so feet off the ground when I had no trees or tall
supports.

I've got a place out in the sticks, and I always have a radio there,
but I have dipoles in the trees that I leave there. I run 80 and 40
dipoles on a single coax and the apex is up in an oak tree about
25 feet or so. I've got about 100 feet of RG-58, so it will pretty
reach
anywhere around the camp or driveway area. I usually stick the radio
on a stone bench I have there and power it off the car.
When I leave, I roll up the coax and hang it on a tree branch stump.
This was about three weekends ago.. Weather net on 75m I
stumbled across.. Scuse the camera focus hunting.. :/
http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/radio.wmv

BTW.. the antenna is resonant 80/40, but I have no trouble
receiving any other HF frequency. When I was there three weeks
ago, all bands were open up to 10 meters and I had no trouble
hearing any of them. Receiving is just not very critical.
It even does OK on VHF.. I listen to the local sheriff dept, etc
at night sometimes. I have no trouble hearing them on that HF
antenna.
I've got to where I use the radio more out there in the sticks
than I do here at home.. :/

Random wire vs ANLP1
 

On Sun, 7 Nov 2010 07:29, wrote:
On Nov 6, 7:46*pm, Bajamatic wrote:

And finally, will the reception of the ANLP1 increase very much if
it's 30 feet up?

Not for most signals. Only if they were line of sight.

Well, it _might_ get the device up and away from local _noise_ sources.

Random wire vs ANLP1
 

On Nov 7, 1:03*pm, Allodoxaphobia
wrote:
On Sun, 7 Nov 2010 07:29, wrote:
On Nov 6, 7:46 pm, Bajamatic wrote:

And finally, will the reception of the ANLP1 increase very much if
it's 30 feet up?

Not for most signals. Only if they were line of sight.

Well, it _might_ get the device up and away from local _noise_ sources.

If he's out in the sticks, there should be no local noise sources.
That's one reason why he really doesn't need to even use a
feed line per say. Local noise should not be an issue.
And if there were any power line noise from the general area,
elevating the antenna will just increase it if it's line of sight.
For sky wave signals, elevating that small loop is not
worth the trouble out in the Baja which I assume is a semi-
desert type terrain. It should do almost as well low as it
does elevated.
As long as the signals are not local line of sight, even the wire
antenna doesn't need to be too high. Five feet off the ground
will work just fine for most HF reception that is sky wave.
With a decent length wire, you will still have more signal
than is required for any decent radio. And almost anything
made these days is fairly sensitive. Even the cheap portables.

Thanks for all this info. As i'm still just listening, I think I'm starting to understand that all the tuning and matching is somewhat irrelevant to my needs. There is literally nothing for miles where I'll be deploying this and all I really care about is catching the morning weather round up around 7250 kHz and then whatever else I can pick up while sitting fireside. So far the random wire seems like the cheapest and easiest way to go, and maybe even the best all around performer. I figure I'll get a spool of wire and run it at least 4 feet off the ground - is that really all I need to do?! Since thats so easy, I'll probably play with a SUPER long one (500 feet+), and then find the best balance between performance length and convenience. Two more questions before I put it to test:

will if effect the performance if the antenna comes into contact with the ground?

Will I get the same results if I make a 20 foot x 20 foot square and run a huge length of wire along the perimeter at different heights so as not to short but essentially 500 feet of wire run around a shape instead of in a relatively straight line?


Thanks for all your insight.

bmtc

Random wire vs ANLP1
 

On Mon, 8 Nov 2010 18:44:04 +0000, Bajamatic
wrote:

I'll
probably play with a SUPER long one (500 feet+), and then find the best
balance between performance length and convenience.

Take care to anticipate that this long an antenna may well have to
pointed at (lengthwise) the station you want to receive instead of
pointed broadside to it.

Two more questions
before I put it to test:

will if effect the performance if the antenna comes into contact with
the ground?

Yes - more loss. However, the troops in Desert Storm did it in the
sand dunes; but they were only talking to local operations - not DXing
Andorra.

Will I get the same results if I make a 20 foot x 20 foot square and run
a huge length of wire along the perimeter at different heights so as not
to short but essentially 500 feet of wire run around a shape instead of
in a relatively straight line?

500 feet of wire is not a virture.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

. Thanks for the advice.

Random wire vs ANLP1
 

While out and about beware of your DC-AC inverter if you have one. If
hear whistles and hum, it might come from your own DC-AC inverter.
All my AC stuff (PC, cell chargers) is strictly inside the car, so
not much noise escapes and even longwave is clear and quiet (I am in
Europe). If you have that problem, move antenna and other electric
stuff away from each other.

The AOR7030 has a high impedance wire antenna input. If you're
really fireside, not easy to beat a random wire, and not even a
terribly long one. I wouldn't bother with more than 30-50'.

Just don't trip in the power cord under the moonlight. That radio
needs external power, 12Vdc from a vehicle is fine.

You'll have great fun, I envy you a bit.

Random wire vs ANLP1
 

On Tue, 9 Nov 2010 08:44:21 -0800 (PST), spamhog
wrote:

The AOR7030 has a high impedance wire antenna input. If you're
really fireside, not easy to beat a random wire, and not even a
terribly long one. I wouldn't bother with more than 30-50'.

To give some context with my own experience "in the wild" of South
Africa Zulu/Natal (actually at a 5 star safari camp), I took the
cheapest digital SW radio I could find at Radio Shack, 20 feet of
wire-wrap wire, and connected an alligator clip to the wire so that I
could then connect the wire to the whip antenna.

Without the wire, reception was limited to the hum-drum of BBC, VOA,
DW - with the wire thrown up over a rafter the number of signals were
considerable. I've always considered it underwhelming to get a
distant station playing an American music program like Lady Gaga when
what I wanted to hear was Fela Kuti.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

Random wire vs ANLP1
 

*I've always considered it underwhelming to get a
distant station playing an American music program like Lady Gaga when
what I wanted to hear was Fela Kuti.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC


Respect! :-)

I'll be sure to report back my findings.

Since posting this I've started to wonder if I really need a radio of the 7030 caliber. Thoughts on that? Am i going to find a substantial difference between something like the Grundig sat.750 and the AOR7030? Or even the little g5 portable? Seems like between this I might start to focus more on speaker quality as the reports are that they are all great radios? I'd love to hear what you all think about that idea.

Random wire vs ANLP1
 

On Mon, 22 Nov 2010 20:28:52 +0000, Bajamatic
wrote:

as the reports are that they are all
great radios? I'd love to hear what you all think about that idea.

For hearing about how products perform, I put them into Amazon, and
look at the customer reviews, and pay attention to the ones yelling
MURDER!

For some products, those folks are lost at sea and asking for table
napkins - or they are dead-on. Very easy to differentiate. When I
looked at those complaining of Grundig quality, they sounded
knowledgeable for some things, and hyper-sensitive about other things.

Amazon doesn't sell my Radio Shack 20-125, but it, too, finds web
sites that offer a spread of reviews where, again, I look at the ones
yelling MURDER! When I encounter one complaining that there was no
tuning knob, I have to wonder. This sucker cost me $40, and I could
easily see that feature missing before I pushed the credit card across
the display case. Others complain of lack of sensitivity (I saw no
evidence of them using anything but the whip). I've already heard
more African stations in a day on my RS20-125 than they will in a
lifetime on theirs - unless they go to Africa like I did. Another
complains of bandwidth - c'mon, it is a consumer radio, not a
communications receiver.

And then there is the class of disgruntled customer who grumbles about
the poor fit of controls made by Chinese sources. They can find these
problems with any product.

Being the type to expand upon this kind of grief, I would suspect from
the from all comments considered that Grundig put a RS 20-125 inside
their magnificent case which, perhaps, suffered some fit and feel
problems (being Chinese made, after all - give me a break! Do they
think they are Swiss Watches?). With a price ratio of 7:1, is that
magnificent case something you need?

At the end of the day, you really need to visit the show room floor,
look at the various models to appreciate how they are going to fit
into your lifestyle - and then take them for a test drive. That is,
put them on a known antenna, at the usual listening time, and listen.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

Random wire vs ANLP1
 

On Nov 22, 2:28*pm, Bajamatic
wrote:
I'll be sure to report back my findings.

Since posting this I've started to wonder if I really need a radio of
the 7030 caliber. Thoughts on that? *Am i going to find a substantial
difference between something like the Grundig sat.750 and the AOR7030?
Or even the little g5 portable? *Seems like between this I might start
to focus more on speaker quality as the reports are that they are all
great radios? *I'd love to hear what you all think about that idea.

--
Bajamatic

Depends what you are listening to. AM broadcast, almost anything
will work. SSB, and weaker utility stations, a better receiver can pay
off. Not so much sensitivity, but filtering, image rejection with
larger
antennas, etc.. Often more stable too..
I've got loads of receivers, some of which I never use and forget
I even have.. IE: I've got three or four "portables", but never use
them.
But for SW/MW-BC, I could pick up any one of them, and have
no problems with a little more wire clipped to them.
But most of the reception I do is SSB, and listening to other
hams. So naturally, I usually prefer a bit better radio with
better selectivity. Some of my cheaper portables don't even
have SSB mode.. Some do though..
I've got several Drake receivers. The cheapest one being a
Drake SW-1, which does not have SSB capability.
But it's great for casual SW-BC, and MW-BC. It's S/S
and can run off 12v.
But useless for ham use, except for maybe catching a few
AMer's. For SSB use, I'd be grabbing one of my older Drakes.
Or.. maybe if I were trying to dig out some weak station
packed in between a bunch of powerhouses.
I've got a Drake 2C and 2 CQ, one of the original R4's, "0058
serial", and also a R4C. I've got one of the very first R4's built,
and one of the last.. :/ Both are pretty good radios.
My little IC-706mk2g is great for almost any kind of listening.
It's filtered tight enough for average SSB, but it's wide in
the AM mode, unless the filter is on. So the AM audio
sounds real good on it. The AM filter is actually too tight,
and almost useless so I almost never use it.
One thing I like about it, is it's general coverage and goes
up to UHF. So I can listen from LW, up through MW/SW
and on up through the air band, police bands, etc..
Makes a great scanner.
So many receivers, so little time.. Or money in some cases..
:/
You just have to decide mostly on what you want to
listen to.