Minimum wire length
 

My backyard is limited in length. The lot is 86 feet long. My question is,
how long a wire should I use to have a good shortwave antenna that will fit
in my yard. I know optimum is around 100 feet but I can't accommodate that
length. If it passes over the house does it matter how much space there is
between the wire and the roof of the house?

Pierre

See http://www.anarc.org/naswa/badx/ante...e_antenna.html

Height is much more important than length. I generally don't bother with
a horizontal run of more than 30 feet or so. For faint signal reception,
a moderate length antenna away from houses and power lines is better
than a bigger antenna near noise sources.

Peter wrote:
My backyard is limited in length. The lot is 86 feet long. My
question is,
how long a wire should I use to have a good shortwave antenna that
will fit
in my yard. I know optimum is around 100 feet but I can't accommodate
that
length. If it passes over the house does it matter how much space
there is
between the wire and the roof of the house?

-jpd

My question is,
how long a wire should I use to have a good shortwave antenna that will fit
in my yard.

Two things. Firstly, depending on the radio you're using, you may not want even
86 feet of wire, since it may cause overload on stronger signals. With a
portable, 50 feet might be too much.
Secondly, ANY amount of wire that is up as high as you can get it but away from
powerlines (for safety AND noise/interference reasons) will be a good antenna.
86 feet is a lot to work with, so consider yourself lucky, see how high you can
get it up there, and have fun experimenting with antennas! :-)
Linus

GrtPmpkin32 schrieb:


Secondly, ANY amount of wire that is up as high as you can get it but away from
powerlines (for safety AND noise/interference reasons) will be a good antenna.

....and sometimes a good lightning arrestor.
So have a look on lightning protection.

Two antenna is a good bet;
One ~30 feet for strong stations,

- Then the Longer one for faint, distant ones..

Dan


My backyard is limited in length. The lot is 86 feet long. My question is,
how long a wire should I use to have a good shortwave antenna that will fit
in my yard. I know optimum is around 100 feet but I can't accommodate that
length. If it passes over the house does it matter how much space there is
between the wire and the roof of the house?

Pierre

Peter wrote:

My backyard is limited in length. The lot is 86 feet long. My question is,
how long a wire should I use to have a good shortwave antenna that will fit
in my yard. I know optimum is around 100 feet but I can't accommodate that
length. If it passes over the house does it matter how much space there is
between the wire and the roof of the house?

Pierre




Can you bend it so you can get more length if you need it. Hieght
matters but mine works well at about 17 feet about the ground.
Have a look under antennas at the AMANDX site below. Some of the info
could be usefull

--
73 and Best of DX
Shawn Axelrod

Visit the AMANDX DX site with info for the new or experienced listener:

http://www.angelfire.com/mb/amandx/index.html

REMEMBER ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN HEAR FOREVER

I can bend it a bit. I am using the Drake R8B radio.

Is 12 inches above the roof of the house enough to be away from
interference?


Pierre
"The Axelrods" wrote in message
...


Peter wrote:

My backyard is limited in length. The lot is 86 feet long. My question
is,
how long a wire should I use to have a good shortwave antenna that will
fit
in my yard. I know optimum is around 100 feet but I can't accommodate
that
length. If it passes over the house does it matter how much space there
is
between the wire and the roof of the house?

Pierre




Can you bend it so you can get more length if you need it. Hieght
matters but mine works well at about 17 feet about the ground.
Have a look under antennas at the AMANDX site below. Some of the info
could be usefull

--
73 and Best of DX
Shawn Axelrod

Visit the AMANDX DX site with info for the new or experienced listener:

http://www.angelfire.com/mb/amandx/index.html

REMEMBER ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN HEAR FOREVER

Peter wrote:
I can bend it a bit. I am using the Drake R8B radio.

Is 12 inches above the roof of the house enough to be away from
interference?

Probably not. Unless your house is unusually free of
electrical/electronic gadgets, above the house is bad.

-=jd=- wrote:
On Fri 14 May 2004 06:43:47p, "Peter" wrote in
message e.rogers.com:


I can bend it a bit. I am using the Drake R8B radio.

Is 12 inches above the roof of the house enough to be away from
interference?




Reading that, it seems there's a joke in there dying to get out...


Only when the firemen come for the lightning scorched corpse.




mike

-=jd=- wrote:

On Fri 14 May 2004 06:43:47p, "Peter" wrote in
message e.rogers.com:

I can bend it a bit. I am using the Drake R8B radio.

Is 12 inches above the roof of the house enough to be away from
interference?



Reading that, it seems there's a joke in there dying to get out...

In any event, if I were you, I'd string as long of a wire as I could as
high as I could and see what happens. You have to start somewhere.

If you can only fit 50 feet of wire 8 feet off the ground, then that's all
you can do. String it up in a temporary fashion (if you want) and see what
you get. "Looks" don't necessarily indicate performance. If it seems to
work ok, then go back and make your mounts more permanent and pretty.

Then start looking around at the amandx and hardcore-dx sites and see if
you get any ideas to either improve it, or perhaps just some ideas to
experiment with.

There's no shortage of antenna info on the web for you to try, but it
seems to me that after you get the initial wire up, there aren't too many
more improvements to be made before you start entering the realm of
diminishing returns. Once you get past installing a good ground and
perhaps a matching transformer for a coax feed, it's as if you are a drag
racer looking for that extra 100th of a second.

My general take on it is that if I had a similarly shaped lot and a
similar antenna and radio, we could try the same thing and get two
different sets of results (large or small).

The main point is you won't know what your specific situation can do until
you try something.

Sally forth and boldly string your wire antenna and then come back and
tell everyone how it seems to work.

-=jd=-


A good post from jd, and I agree with every word of it. I would add
one thing (which is basically a compression of his post, with my own
slant): Antennas are 50% science, 25%
"what-the-hell-let's-give-it-a-shot", and 25% sheer luck.

Tony