Run a wire in any direction you wish. It won't be directional enough
to matter. Just get it as high as you conveniently can. And it will
pick up ham signals just fine if it's in the general range of 30' to
100' feet, as you indicated. Hams make their antennas in certain exact
lengths because of transmitting requirements, but for simply receiving
signals, length doesn't matter that much. Have fun...

bob
k5qwg



On Thu, 18 Jan 2007 04:26:08 GMT, JimC wrote:


I'm trying to sort through some material I have read regarding setting
up an antenna for general shortwave reception, probably in the 4,000 -
12,000 MHz range(??), for a modest SW receiver (table top model with AF
gain, RF gain, band spread, S-meter, BFO Pitch adjustment, antenna trim,
etc.). From the materials I have read, I can get reasonably good
general SW reception (though not great reception of code or Ham
broadcasts), with an antenna of around 30 - 100 feet. As understood, the
antenna wire could be simply routed around the room; or, put in the
attic; or, alternatively, strung outside, suitably in an "inverted L"
configuration. (I'm not going to get into directionaly antenna arrays
for Ham reception at the present time.)

If I string a straight length of antenna wire outside (which would
probably be longer than the wavelengths of most signals I'll be
listening to), is its reception directional, and if so, should it
preferably be "aimed" in a certain direction? (Assuming that I would
probably want to listen most often to stations that are located east
northeast of our location here in Texas?) I'm guessing that it should be
perpendicular to the direction from which most signals would come from.
Also, is there a significant advantage to running it at an angle rather
than horizontally, as in some designs?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Jim