Peter wrote:
Hi there, I have a Drake R8B radio and I am not getting the most out of it
because of the antenna. I have a 80 foot lot and want to improve my current
antenna setup. Right now I have 50 feet of wire strung between 2 trees 6
feet off the ground which I twisted a feed in line in the center of the
length. I was wondering if I raise the antenna if it would make a big
difference and also I can lengthen it if it doesn't need to be straight I.E.
90 degrees around a tree. Where should I connect the feed in line( I am
thinking of using coax)? Also how do I connect the wires? Ground and center.

I realize these might be stupid questions but I am very new to doing this.

Thanks very much for your help.

Pierre


Hello Pierre,

Nice to see you out there. I struggled with longwires, and found that
noise was a big problem. I went with a loop this spring, and have been
very pleased with the result. It is simply a triangle with the top
around 20ft hanging from a tree. The base is about 4ft off the ground.
The total wire length is around 66ft. The loop is fed at the middle of
the bottom horizontal portion with a 1:1 balun and coax. The coax is
grounded where it enters the house. Signals are somewhat less, but the
signal/noise ratio is very impressive. This is basically a 20M fullwave
loop, but it works very well for general listening from 3-30MHz. I may
make this into a K9AY loop at some point, but this is good general
purpose antenna if you have one fairly high support.

Cheers,
Chris VE6RDC