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#1
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Planninc a car trip
I'm planning a long road trip in a couple of weeks. I planned on
driving primarily at night and I thought it would be interesting to be able to listen to shortwave along the way. So my idea is to take along my DX-390, sit it in my lap and twiddle the knobs as I drive. I'll listen through an earpiece. Anyway, the question is my antenna. I planned on taking a piece of wire, maybe 8 feet long or so. I attach one end of it to the top of the auto antenna that sticks out of the hood of my car and fasten it there with a wire tie. I run it down the length of the antenna and fasten it at the bottom with another wire tie. Run the remainder in through the window and done. So my questions a 1. Will this work? 2. Is a standard automotive antenna long enough. I can temperairly lengthen it with a piece of stiff wire or something. 3. Is it better to attach it to the radio by clipping it onto the telescoping antenna or the antenna input jack. Thanks for your input. |
#2
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"Finch" wrote in message ... I'm planning a long road trip in a couple of weeks. I planned on driving primarily at night and I thought it would be interesting to be able to listen to shortwave along the way. So my idea is to take along my DX-390, sit it in my lap and twiddle the knobs as I drive. I'll listen through an earpiece. Anyway, the question is my antenna. I planned on taking a piece of wire, maybe 8 feet long or so. I attach one end of it to the top of the auto antenna that sticks out of the hood of my car and fasten it there with a wire tie. I run it down the length of the antenna and fasten it at the bottom with another wire tie. Run the remainder in through the window and done. So my questions a 1. Will this work? 2. Is a standard automotive antenna long enough. I can temperairly lengthen it with a piece of stiff wire or something. 3. Is it better to attach it to the radio by clipping it onto the telescoping antenna or the antenna input jack. Thanks for your input. Anytime I have tried something similar to this, the radiated noise p/u from the vehicle has been horrible. Once that wire gets inside (remember, it is an antenna through out its length) it picks up all the uprocessor stuff from the car's electrical system. The very best solution I found was a homebrew active whip- length was not at all critical- mine ended up 3' long. The whip and Z converter/preamp were attached to a magnet mount on the roof and the coax with multiplexed power led in through the window- reception from MW through 6M was excellent. This was the only time I have been able to monitor tropical band while mobile. -- Dale W4OP for PAR Electronics, Inc. |
#3
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"Finch" wrote in message ... So my questions a 1. Will this work? 2. Is a standard automotive antenna long enough. I can temperairly lengthen it with a piece of stiff wire or something. 3. Is it better to attach it to the radio by clipping it onto the telescoping antenna or the antenna input jack. Thanks for your input. I don't think this arrangement would be practical especially at highway speeds - the connections would likely come apart. Its also prone to noise pickup and your lead-in wire will be very close to the vehicle body. I think the standard antenna is long enough for casual listening and it could be improved upon with an antenna tuner. I've used an HF receiver in the car with the stock antenna (no tuner) with surprisingly good results. The best approach would be to take the antenna coax off of the back of the car radio and run it into the DX-390. You should be able to locate the connectors and adapters for this at Radio Shack. I did this in a car I used to drive and I also installed a coax switch so I could switch the antenna back and forth between radios. I don't know what the audio from the DX-390 is like but audio is also a concern while mobile. You may need to go with a speaker mounted close to the drivers position or run the audio back into the vehicles sound system. Good Luck. |
#4
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And please be careful as you twiddle the knobs while driving!
"Finch" wrote in message ... I'm planning a long road trip in a couple of weeks. I planned on driving primarily at night and I thought it would be interesting to be able to listen to shortwave along the way. So my idea is to take along my DX-390, sit it in my lap and twiddle the knobs as I drive. I'll listen through an earpiece. Anyway, the question is my antenna. I planned on taking a piece of wire, maybe 8 feet long or so. I attach one end of it to the top of the auto antenna that sticks out of the hood of my car and fasten it there with a wire tie. I run it down the length of the antenna and fasten it at the bottom with another wire tie. Run the remainder in through the window and done. So my questions a 1. Will this work? 2. Is a standard automotive antenna long enough. I can temperairly lengthen it with a piece of stiff wire or something. 3. Is it better to attach it to the radio by clipping it onto the telescoping antenna or the antenna input jack. Thanks for your input. |
#5
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Get a Sirius Satellite Receiver.
You can listen to all the major International Broadcasters on WRN, Channel 115, in glorious hifi. Shortwave broadcasting isn't quite dead yet, but the bedsores are pretty gross. http://www.sirius.com/servlet/Conten...d=996089493678 On Mon, 05 Jul 2004 07:08:20 -0400, Finch wrote: I'm planning a long road trip in a couple of weeks. I planned on driving primarily at night and I thought it would be interesting to be able to listen to shortwave along the way. So my idea is to take along my DX-390, sit it in my lap and twiddle the knobs as I drive. I'll listen through an earpiece. Anyway, the question is my antenna. I planned on taking a piece of wire, maybe 8 feet long or so. I attach one end of it to the top of the auto antenna that sticks out of the hood of my car and fasten it there with a wire tie. I run it down the length of the antenna and fasten it at the bottom with another wire tie. Run the remainder in through the window and done. So my questions a 1. Will this work? 2. Is a standard automotive antenna long enough. I can temperairly lengthen it with a piece of stiff wire or something. 3. Is it better to attach it to the radio by clipping it onto the telescoping antenna or the antenna input jack. Thanks for your input. |
#6
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I don't have a satelite receiver, but I read recently in WRTH, which was
otherwise excited about the idea of satellite reception, that the audio quality of the international broadcasters was lower than the other stations. David wrote in : Get a Sirius Satellite Receiver. You can listen to all the major International Broadcasters on WRN, Channel 115, in glorious hifi. Shortwave broadcasting isn't quite dead yet, but the bedsores are pretty gross. http://www.sirius.com/servlet/ContentServer? pagename=Sirius/CachedPage& c=ChannelAsset&cid=996089493678 On Mon, 05 Jul 2004 07:08:20 -0400, Finch wrote: I'm planning a long road trip in a couple of weeks. I planned on driving primarily at night and I thought it would be interesting to be able to listen to shortwave along the way. So my idea is to take along my DX-390, sit it in my lap and twiddle the knobs as I drive. I'll listen through an earpiece. Anyway, the question is my antenna. I planned on taking a piece of wire, maybe 8 feet long or so. I attach one end of it to the top of the auto antenna that sticks out of the hood of my car and fasten it there with a wire tie. I run it down the length of the antenna and fasten it at the bottom with another wire tie. Run the remainder in through the window and done. So my questions a 1. Will this work? 2. Is a standard automotive antenna long enough. I can temperairly lengthen it with a piece of stiff wire or something. 3. Is it better to attach it to the radio by clipping it onto the telescoping antenna or the antenna input jack. |
#7
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As others have noted, running a long wire is probably not going
to work well in a car. Another alternative to using the radio's built-in antenna or finding the connections from your car's antenna would be a small mag-mount whip with coax. (You can put a bit of plastic wrap under the magnet to keep it from scratching your car's paint.) My car that now has the Becker Mexico is currently in the shop while my mechanic tries to figure out why the seemingly solid antenna connection is going in and out. In order to enjoy the radio before it went into the shop, and to show him how the radio should be performing, I put my 2m 1/4-wave whip on the car and got an adapter to connect it to the Becker. It worked like a dream. When I put the radio in scan mode after sunset, it was stopping on a station nearly every 20-40KHz on shortwave. Longwave and medium-wave reception were also excellent. So that might be another option for you. Enjoy your trip--and drive safely! Patty |
#8
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Finch wrote in message ...
I'm planning a long road trip in a couple of weeks. I planned on driving primarily at night and I thought it would be interesting to be able to listen to shortwave along the way. So my idea is to take along my DX-390, sit it in my lap and twiddle the knobs as I drive. I'll listen through an earpiece. snip.............................................. ................... You will get much better reception if you put a mag-mount antenna on the roof of the car and run the attached co-ax lead to the DX-390. Get an adapter for the co-ax plug from Radio Shack. The easiest place to find a mag-mount antenna is at a truck stop. They usually have CB-type mag mounts for $25.00 or so. You have to modify the coil so make sure you get an antenna where the coil is a good size where you can get at the windings. The CB coil is resonant at ~27 mhz and has to be modified for the SW bands. The easist way is to bypass the coil with a jumper wire across the coil. This is usually enough to give you an untuned whip which will work fine on SW. If you find one of the CB antennas with large coils you can replace the CB coil with a hand-wound coil of smaller wire and many turns. This will make the antenna broadly resonant in some part of the SW spectrum. If you really want to boost performance you can put taps on various parts of the coil but that may be more than you have time to tackle right now. Another quicker, better way is to get a BIG mag mount and a 10 mhz whip from a ham radio supplier, but that would cost more. Also, the antenna acts as a thief magnet and has to be stored in the trunk each time you park. Another useful item for mobiling with a portable is a small FM transmitter designed for automobiles. You plug in an audio source switch it on, and you can hear your radio, casette, etc on you car radio with lots of volume. Wal-Mart has them for about $20. I found that on my setup, the SW7600G was a bit short on volume. Modern car radios are buried so deep in the dashboard that it is usually quite a project to get at the Motorola plug at the end of the car antenna lead, but that is another possibility. You would have to get a 3-foot extension and the correct adapter, but the car antenna works fine and you wouldn't have the use of the car radio. To sum up 1. The cheapest way is to use your existing car antenna if you can get at it. Adding a length of whip didn't seem to help much. If you do add a length get the 56" fine whips used on amateur 2-meter antennas to keep the wind loading down 2. The next way is to get the CB mag-mount and modify it. 3. The best way is to get an amateur mobile antenna. Make sure the total height does not get you whacking street power and phone lines or low bridges. After trying all the above, I found the modified CB antenna the best. It didn't stick up too high, used a smaller magnet, and was easy to remove to the trunk, and with taps, was just about as good as the ham antenna. Considering the vast wasteland that is AM broadcasting, SW is worth the trouble. Sorry about the fragmented text: it looks perfect when typed: must be some setting buried in Netscape. |
#9
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