Angelo Sartore wrote:

Hi there,
This topic, I'm sure has been covered before. My brother-in-law is about to
take a long sailing trip from NZ to USA as a passenger aboard a cargo ship.
He will be taking with him a Grundig YB 400 receiver. He had heard of other
sailors/passengers dangling an antenna out of their port hole window to tune
into radio stations on their SW receivers. He has asked me if I could make
something up for him to take away with him. The unit has a 3.5mm mono jack
as the ext. ant connector. The radio has a small reel of cable for the
external antenna. According to the user manual with the radio it indicates
coaxial cable as part of the antenna system with out mentioning cable
lengths. The tuning freq possible with this radio are FM 87.5 - 108 MHz, MW
520 - 1710 kHz, LW 144 - 353 kHz, SW 1711 - 30000 kHz & 3200 - 29700 kHz in
20 bands.
Any ideas for a portable antenna would be gratefully appreciated.

Thanks,

Angelo Sartore

I would be tempted to fly a small helium balloon from the port hole or
deck with at least 20-ft of fine wire. Connect the wire to the whip and
I bet you would get some neat reception. Might be a good idea to ask
permission first. :-)


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With the amount of wind that will be present, the balloon would be trailing,
not rising. You would have a horizontal antenna with the altitude equal to
about the mooring point. I know people that have done this with kites
though. It works well but can be quite dangerous if you don't know what you
are doing.

I would be tempted to fly a small helium balloon from the port hole or
deck with at least 20-ft of fine wire. Connect the wire to the whip and
I bet you would get some neat reception. Might be a good idea to ask
permission first. :-)


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"starman" wrote in message
...

I would be tempted to fly a small helium balloon from the port hole or
deck with at least 20-ft of fine wire. Connect the wire to the whip and
I bet you would get some neat reception. Might be a good idea to ask
permission first. :-)

Would be kind of unwieldy to use on a ship, unless you had helium tanks
handy. Then you have to take into consideration the static charges on the
wire.

The wife & I went on a cruise a couple weeks ago and I was amazed at how
windy it gets on the upper deck of a ship. At times it was hard to walk
because of the wind. If you had a wire suspended by baloon I'm sure the
static charges would be horrendous.

I took my Sony 2010 and just used the portable whip and had decent results.
Our cabin was on the inside of the ship and didn't have any porthole, so the
only SWL'ing I did was up on deck. Didn't bother taking along any wire
since I didn't think I'd get permission to string one up, nor was there an
easy way to string one up without having it be in the way of people walking
on deck.

--
Tom Sevart N2UHC
Frontenac, KS
http://www.geocities.com/n2uhc

When I FCC-tested the receivers on shipboard lifeboat radios, back in my
working days, I'd string out a wire from a 90-foot spool of #22 stranded, with
yellow insulation for good visibility, that I had bought from Radio Shack. I
had cut off a foot or two for tying off the spool, with the remaining wire, out
of the way at a higher deck hand rail, cable, or pipe.

I still have that spool of wire in my tool bag. I had also used bits of it for
emergency splicing of burned open circuits. LOL

On a cargo vessel, your B-i-L will have more latitude. He should get familiar
with the radio officer. G

73,
Bill, K5BY