| Home |
| Search |
| Today's Posts |
|
#11
February 4th 13, 02:25 AM
|
|||
|
|||
Thank you very much for all your responses! The spectrum of thought, and wide array of opinions, are fascinating and educational.
There are clearly several roads that lead to Rome. Distilling the narrative I extract the following: - Antenna height dominates. It is hence a good thing I live in a Manhattan apartment building at 250ft elevation, with a large window facing West and an unobstructed view of New Jersey. (Of course I can forget about listening to JFK or LGA.) - With neither antenna-building expertise nor dedicated rf measuring equipment, it is better to stick to a straightforward design such as a dipole or Yagi with two or three elements, or even a piece of coax, where dimensions either require less precision or can be realized more easily. I'll definitely continue the experimentation. And oh, toss my copper tubing lunacy...! - Even so, I should not expect jaw-dropping improvement over my airband rubber duck or even the $30 ladder line Slim Jim I bought. After moving that around a bit it's working quite well now and pulls in airplanes taxiing around Newark Airport, 11 miles out, depending on atmospheric conditions. Newark Tower, which transmits with more power at higher elevation, comes in intelligibly most of the time. Both the Slim Jim, its horizontal gain notwithstanding, and the duck capture nearby airplanes up to 8,000 ft or so. Most air-to-ground communications are at lower altitudes anyway. Many thanks again for all your comments! I'll post updates to this thread in case anybody is interested in my novice attempts. Cheers, Michiel P.S. On a different note, I'll be putting a perfectly restored Sony Pro80 in as-new operational and cosmetic condition on eBay in the next couple of weeks. Quote:
Last edited by Michiel Kappeyne : February 4th 13 at 02:42 AM |
|
#12
February 4th 13, 06:49 PM
posted to rec.radio.amateur.antenna
|
|||
|
|||
|
Building Slim Jim for Air Band
On Mon, 4 Feb 2013 02:25:15 +0000, Michiel Kappeyne
wrote: - Antenna height dominates. It is hence a good thing I live in a Manhattan apartment building at 250ft elevation, with a large window facing West and an unobstructed view of New Jersey. (Of course I can forget about listening to JFK or LGA.) Ummm... you may have a different problem. Presumably, you're using an indoor antenna as I doubt the windows open at the 250ft level. For energy efficiency, such windows are coated with Titanium Dioxide and other metallic coating designed to reflect infrared to improve the energy efficiency of the HVAC system. Unfortunately, they also block RF to varying degrees. If you're experiencing somewhat weak reception, it might be the Low-E coating. Unless you can arrange for antenna on the rooftop (unlikely), I can't offer a solution. P.S. On a different note, I'll be putting a perfectly restored Sony Pro80 in as-new operational and cosmetic condition on eBay in the next couple of weeks. Good luck. -- Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558 |
| Reply |
|
| Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
| Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads
|
||||
| Thread | Forum | |||
| Help with slim jim nec model | Antenna | |||
| Stub-matched folded 2 band zepp - Slim Jim | Homebrew | |||
| Anyone here of a "SLim Jim" antenna? | Antenna | |||
| NEED: Schematics for building a broad band frequency jammer (FM 88M-108M) | Homebrew | |||
| Building an Aircraft Band Antenna | Antenna | |||
Linear Mode
