In article ,
dxAce wrote:

Telamon wrote:

In article ,
"Rikk" wrote:

"Rikk" wrote in message
...
Hi I am wondering if I have my longwire set correctly, maybe you
could advise please. At the moment I have a sloping long-wire of
about 50 foot, going from the top of a mast on my house about 35
foot tall to the top of a washing line post about 12 foot tall. I
have connected the lonwire to my radio by means of CB-coax, what I
have done is to attach the centre core of the coax to the longwire
and I have cut the outer sheath on the coax near to the ground and
connected an earhtwire that is soldered to a cold water main supply
pipe as an earth. Only the centre wire on the coax is connected to
the actual longwire.

Is there a way I could do better.

I am thinking about getting an active antenna, the Sony AN-1

Would this work better for me or is there a better alternative
available. I am running an Icom R72 thanks Rikk



Hi Guys Thanks all very much for your help, I appreciate your
comments, I have opted to order a balun from a supplier mention on
this thread and see how it goes from there. I shall also try a few of
your other suggestions as they are really interesting in therory. As
you can probably see, I am relativly new to sw and until now have
been using the SW77 on it's telescopic antenna, but time for me to
move forward a bit, so I will see what I can do with the R72 thanks
again

You are off to a good start and as someone else in the thread already
mentioned you could improve the random wire performance with a UNUN
impedance matching transformer at the coax/random wire junction.

This wire should already be working better then the whip. You can tune
through the bands to get an idea how well it is working. Usually good
wire performance will start at the 1/4 wavelength frequency of the wire
length and will work well from that frequency on up except at even
multiples of that 1/4 wavelength so 1/2 wavelength would not be good.

As long as the even multiple does not fall on a SW band you are OK.

Some people use more than one wire. I think this is a game plan that
DxAce uses with two separate wires one twice the length of the other. I
think he uses a 100 and 200 foot lengths. Where one would be at zero
volts at the end of the wire the other would be at maximum. If at a
non-resonate wavelength they could look the same.

Since your long length is 50 foot you tie on another 25 foot wire at the
coax junction and hang the far end off the 50 foot wire a few feet with
an insulator of fishing line as an example. Not as clean as two separate
wires but it should work well.

A 50 foot wire in air should be 1/4 wave resonate at about 9.7 MHz. The
9 MHz band would be your best to pick up signals with the 50 foot wire.

I'm using a 70' wire running N-S and a 200' wire running W-E.

Were the two different lengths intentional or that they fit your home
lot? The different lengths do work in your favor.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

In article ,
dxAce wrote:

Telamon wrote:

In article ,
dxAce wrote:

Telamon wrote:

In article ,
"Rikk" wrote:

"Rikk" wrote in message
...
Hi I am wondering if I have my longwire set correctly,
maybe you could advise please. At the moment I have a
sloping long-wire of about 50 foot, going from the top of a
mast on my house about 35 foot tall to the top of a washing
line post about 12 foot tall. I have connected the lonwire
to my radio by means of CB-coax, what I have done is to
attach the centre core of the coax to the longwire and I
have cut the outer sheath on the coax near to the ground
and connected an earhtwire that is soldered to a cold water
main supply pipe as an earth. Only the centre wire on the
coax is connected to the actual longwire.

Is there a way I could do better.

I am thinking about getting an active antenna, the Sony
AN-1

Would this work better for me or is there a better
alternative available. I am running an Icom R72 thanks Rikk



Hi Guys Thanks all very much for your help, I appreciate your
comments, I have opted to order a balun from a supplier
mention on this thread and see how it goes from there. I
shall also try a few of your other suggestions as they are
really interesting in therory. As you can probably see, I am
relativly new to sw and until now have been using the SW77 on
it's telescopic antenna, but time for me to move forward a
bit, so I will see what I can do with the R72 thanks again

You are off to a good start and as someone else in the thread
already mentioned you could improve the random wire performance
with a UNUN impedance matching transformer at the coax/random
wire junction.

This wire should already be working better then the whip. You
can tune through the bands to get an idea how well it is
working. Usually good wire performance will start at the 1/4
wavelength frequency of the wire length and will work well from
that frequency on up except at even multiples of that 1/4
wavelength so 1/2 wavelength would not be good.

As long as the even multiple does not fall on a SW band you are
OK.

Some people use more than one wire. I think this is a game plan
that DxAce uses with two separate wires one twice the length of
the other. I think he uses a 100 and 200 foot lengths. Where
one would be at zero volts at the end of the wire the other
would be at maximum. If at a non-resonate wavelength they could
look the same.

Since your long length is 50 foot you tie on another 25 foot
wire at the coax junction and hang the far end off the 50 foot
wire a few feet with an insulator of fishing line as an
example. Not as clean as two separate wires but it should work
well.

A 50 foot wire in air should be 1/4 wave resonate at about 9.7
MHz. The 9 MHz band would be your best to pick up signals with
the 50 foot wire.

I'm using a 70' wire running N-S and a 200' wire running W-E.

Were the two different lengths intentional or that they fit your
home lot? The different lengths do work in your favor.

Pretty much intentional, but they fit my lot which is 85' wide by 463
deep.

I do have a bit of leeway with the neighbours permission for some
longer lengths, but this setup seems to work fairly well, and my
target list these days is quite short, at least country wise.

I'm quite envious of the fact that you can use that type of antenna.
Much to electrically noisy around here for me to do that and about 40
feet is the best I can do anyway on this small lot.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

HF Guy,

Good Inverted "L" Antenna lay-out suggestion and
a good discription on how-to put it all together.

iane ~ RHF

"HFguy" wrote in message
news:NLMOf.920$6h1.61@trndny09...
Rikk wrote:
"Rikk" wrote in message
...

Hi
I am wondering if I have my longwire set correctly, maybe you could
advise please.
At the moment I have a sloping long-wire of about 50 foot, going from the
top of a mast on my house about 35 foot tall to the top of a washing
line post about 12 foot tall. I have connected the lonwire to my radio by
means of CB-coax, what I have done is to attach the centre core of the
coax to the longwire and I have cut the outer sheath on the coax near to
the ground and connected an earhtwire that is soldered to a cold water
main supply pipe as an earth.
Only the centre wire on the coax is connected to the actual longwire.

Is there a way I could do better.

I am thinking about getting an active antenna, the Sony AN-1

Would this work better for me or is there a better alternative available.
I am running an Icom R72
thanks
Rikk




Hi Guys
Thanks all very much for your help, I appreciate your comments, I have
opted to order a balun from a supplier mention on this thread and see how
it goes from there.
I shall also try a few of your other suggestions as they are really
interesting in therory.
As you can probably see, I am relativly new to sw and until now have been
using the SW77 on it's telescopic antenna, but time for me to move
forward a bit, so I will see what I can do with the R72
thanks again
Rikk
United Kingdom

The antenna configuration you have is similar to a 'sloper' design where
one end is higher than the other. To reduce the reception of noise from
appliances in your home, it's better to locate the balun (unun) near the
ground (earth) instead of in the air at the end of the antenna. This means
you should extend the feed end of the antenna to the ground with a single
vertical wire (not coax) and connect that wire to the high impedance input
of the balun. The low impedance output of the balun goes to the coax that
should run on/in the ground to the house. Having the balun and coax near
the ground will allow you to use a short ground wire from the balun to a
ground rod near by. This helps to keep noise off the shield of the coax.
This antenna system (inverted-L) works best if both ends of the horizontal
section are located away from the house. In your case you can make the far
end of the antenna at the wash line pole the feed end with the vertical
wire to the balun near the ground. Instead of having the near end come all
the way to the mast on the house, shorten it about 20-ft and install an
insulator at that end with some nylon rope to the mast. This will keep the
near end of the antenna away from the house, where it could pick up noise.
The vertical wire at the other end will make up for shortening the antenna
at the house end. It will also help to receive signals which arrive at the
antenna from a low angle to the horizon.
My antenna is very similar except I installed a 20-ft metal pole on top of
the wooden clothes line pole to make that end higher above ground. This
also makes the vertical wire longer for better reception.


Thanks very much HF Guy, for your excellent suggestion and easy to follow
instructions.
I am obliged to you
regards
Rikk
UK

BM [K5QWG] - Those were Three Good Antenna Suggestions.

IF - The Low-Z (50 Ohm) SO-239 Connector on the Receiver is being
used for some sort of LongWire {Random Wire} Antenna that is using
a Matching Transformer and a Coax Cable Feed-in-Line.

NOTE - My Favorite is the Inverted "L" Antenna with with the
Vertical-Up-Leg at the Far-End and a Remotely Located
Ground Rod at base of the Far-End of the Antenna; also
using a Matching Transformer (UnUn) between the Wire
Antenna Element and the Coax Cable Feed-in-Line and
having the Coax Cable run directly under the Horizontal
Arm of the Antenna.

READ - ABOUT - The "Low Noise" Antenna design concepts
that were popularized by John Doty :
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.r...86383afa7727a9

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.r...38b087b5e89fee

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Shortw...a/message/5178
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.r...463ad863e5b075

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.r...4620d18b66eeba

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.r...3fe02cad4e5650

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.r...d35eeaa8425c14
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.r...7711375bb4d0bb



THEN CONSIDER A SECOND SHORTWAVE ANTENNA
- - - THINK WINDOM ANTENNA ! ! !
As you observe the High-Z Terminals (500 Ohm) are not being used.
So the High-Z Terminals (500 Ohm) are available to connect a
Second (2nd) "Alternate" {Back-Up} Antenna to the Receiver.

QUESTION : What Will . . .
My Second Shortwave Listener (SWL) Antenna Be ?
{Making Use of the High-Z (500 Ohm) Terminals}
! Think Windom Antenna with 300 Ohm Feed-in-Line !

My Choice for this Second "Alternate" {Back-Up} Antenna
is a Windom Antenna using 300 Ohm TV type Twin Lead
as the Feed-in-Line and simple 20 AWG Hook-Up Wire
as the Wire Antenna Elements.

The Two 'un-equal' Horizontal-Arms of the Windom Antenna
can be Cut for your Target Shortwave Bands or simply
Cut-to-Fit the Available Space allowed by your Lot (Land).

TIP - The Off-Center {Center} Connector for your Windom
* Ten-Tec 3003 Acro-Bat (Dipole Antenna Hanger)
http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/antsup/3720.html

Windom Antenna = Available Space Tip-to-Tip (T2T) Length
* Short Horizontal-Arm 33% ~ 38% of T2T Length
* Long Horizontal-Arm 62% ~ 67% of T2T Length
* How High ? Rigged the Windom at 25% of T2T Length

Windom Antenna = Cut-to-Shortwave-Band

Large Size - Windom Antenna {~ 100 Feet}
Cut for : 60 Meters = 75 Meters + 49 Meters
T2T = 97.7 Ft = 59.2 Ft + 38.5 Ft and Rigged at 24.5 Ft High

Medium Size - Windom Antenna {~ 65 Feet}
Cut for : 41 Meters = 49 Meters + 31 Meters
T2T = 63.0 Ft = 38.5 Ft + 24.5 and Rigged at 17.1 Ft High

Small Size - Windom Antenna {~ 50 Feet}
Cut for : 31 Meters = 41 Meters + 25 Meters
T2T = 51.5 Ft = 31.8 Ft + 19.7 Ft and Rigged at 15.1 Ft High

Mini Size - Windom Antenna {~ 40 Feet}
Cut for : 25 Meters = 31 Meters + 19 Meters
T2T = 39.6 Ft = 24.5 Ft + 15.1 Ft and Rigged at 10.8 Ft High

RIGGING - Ideally the 300 Ohm Twin Lead Vertical-Up-Leg
of the Windom Antenna should run Straight-Up (Vertically)
from the Ground to the Off-Center Mounting Point of the
Antenna and the Rule-of-Thumb for this simple type of
Windom Antenna is to have the Antenna's Horizontal Arms
Rigged [Flat] at about 25% of the Tip-to-Tip (T2T) Length
of the Antenna. Note - The remainder of the Twin Lead
Feed-in-Line can run along the Ground and then to the
Receiver.

READ - Windom -vice- Dipole which is the better SWL Antenna ? ? ?
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.r...c69758fb501718

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SWL-AM...nna/message/80
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Shortw...a/message/1677
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Shortw...a/message/1596
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Shortw...a/message/1582

READ - History of the Windom Antenna from the Scottish Ham Portal
http://www.scotham.net
.
.
hope this helps - iane ~ RHF
.
Tous Sont Bienvenus ! - - - Groupe par Radio
d'auditeur d'onde courte pour des Antennes de SWL
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Shortwave-SWL-Antenna/
.
Alle Sind Willkommen ! - - - Shortwave Radiozuhörer
Gruppe für SWL Antennen
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Shortwave-SWL-Antenna/
.
Tutti Sono Benvenuti ! - - - Gruppo Radiofonico
dell'ascoltatore di onda corta per le Antenne di SWL
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Shortwave-SWL-Antenna/
.
Todos São Bem-vindos ! - - - Grupo de Rádio
do ouvinte do Shortwave para Antenas de SWL
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Shortwave-SWL-Antenna/
.
Ð’Ñ�е Ð*адушны ! - - - Группа оператора
на приеме коротковолнового диапазона
Radio дл� Aнтенн SWL
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Shortwave-SWL-Antenna/
.
¡Todos Son Agradables! - - - Grupo de Radio del oyente
de la onda corta para las Antenas de SWL
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Shortwave-SWL-Antenna/
.
= = = = = Translation = = = = =
All are Welcome - - - To Join the Shortwave Listeners
(SWL) Antenna Group on YAHOO !
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Shortwave-SWL-Antenna/
.
.
.. .

In article et,
Verstaldin wrote:
That sounds like a good rig, but it is going to be more efficient at lower
frequencies. You might rig up another one about 1/4 that length and use it
for higher frequencies.

50 feet=50x3.28=164 meters
300/164=1.8 Mhz which is in medium wave band

I'm surprised that no one else noticed that you've reversed your
conversion factor. That should be 50/3.28, not 50 * 3.28.

Mark Zenier
Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)