Question about which antennas to purchase (alternatives mentioned in post)

[Hrafnseid]

Hi all,

As a brief introduction, I'm a 35 year old male from Norway who have just become interested in radios. A lot. I've read as much as I can read the past few weeks, and have also tried to get as much information as I can about radio/receiver and antennas in general. My interest lies in receiving - not transceiving. Though if I find some relevant course near where I live, I'd love to get onboard in order to increase my understanding of it all.

That said, I have some questions:

In short I have two SDR dongles right now, the RTL2832U/E4000 and the RTL2832U/R820T.

But of course the default antennas are really poor and all I can hear in SDR# are Norwegian FM channels, and noise. Hardly exciting...

What I'd like to do is buy two or three antennas and put them on top of the roof in the house I live in. That said, when buying these antennas, I would of course like for them to work for the current SDR setup I have - but also plan ahead, as I would like to buy a proper receiver. I have not made up my mind yet as to what kind. I see questions on forums to people such as "What do you want to listen to?" and so far all I can say to this is "everything" as I don't know what I would like to focus on the most as of yet. As far as receivers go, I must say the AOR AR6000 looks very nice...

So, what I have of gear right now is the E4000 and R820T. I also have Jani's RTL SDR Tuner/Converter v.4.2 (100kHz-54MHz), and I'm also going to order the LNA4ALL (low noise amplifier), as well as an active USB extension cable to get the gear away from my computer and into another room.

I've been looking at antennas that cover as wide a range as possible, which are also of decent quality, and as said can work for the SDR and a future quality receiver.

Bearing in mind that I may be completely wrong in my thinking due to being an utter beginner, this is what I've come up with so far:

-- Two-antenna options:
1) AOR LA800 (10kHz-500MHz) -> AOR DA3200 (25MHz-3000MHz) = $1010 (6666 NOK)
2) AOR LA800 (10kHz-500MHz) -> Apex Radio 713G-DA (70MHz-3000MHz) = $940 (6204 NOK)
3) RF PRO-1B (50kHz-30MHz) -> AOR DA3200 (25MHz-3000MHz) = $710 (4686 NOK)
4) AOR SA7000 (30kHz-2GHz) -> AOR DA5000 (700MHz-3000MHz) = $680 (4488 NOK)
5) Apex Radio 303WA-2 (30kHz-30MHz) -> AOR SA7000 (30kHz-2GHz) = $400 (2640 NOK)

-- Three-antenna options:
1) Apex Radio 303WA-2 (30kHz-30MHz) -> AOR SA7000 (30kHz-2GHz) -> -> AOR DA5000 (700MHz-3000MHz) = $800 (5280 NOK)

The reason I made an alternative with three antennas, is because I read somewhere that in actuality the AOR SA7000 starts from 30MHz and not 30kHz, so that's why I added the Apex Radio antenna.

I've used Eham Reviews, and Google in general and I can't say I've found extensive reviews, but I've read what I could find. Personally I lean towards the three-antenna option as it seem to cover more bases, although it may be that I am completely wrong!

There's probably many other things I could ask, and things that I also haven't considered as of yet. But I guess I have to start somewhere.

I am looking to you to get some feedback on my thinking here, and options, as well as whether the options I've made above are any good and will be worth getting, with regards to current SDR setup and future communications receiver purchase.

Thanks for any and all help!

 

[jonwienke]

The R820T will tune down to about 25MHz.

Also, the Antennacraft ST-2 is available for less than $100USD and covers 25-1200MHZ pretty well with a single antenna. However it is not suitable for transmit of any significant power. Use a splitter to feed its signal to the dongles, and you'll get a pretty wide variety of stuff to listen to.

 

[ka3jjz]

I would strongly suggest investigating the Wellbrook line of loops, rather than the Pixel for frequencies below 30 Mhz

Heresy, you say? Not at all. The VAT and import fees shipping from the States might be prohibitive - going from the UK, you might save some kronas this way.

They were top-rated in a past WRTH (World Radio TV Handbook) review as well. Definitely worth the time investigating them.

And now a word about our forums; this will be OT, but we all want to keep our new friend out of hot water, so here goes...

I am aware that in many Euro countries, you require a ham license to even consider monitoring stuff other than amateur radio. That's not so here - with some exceptions, listening is pretty much not regulated. So it's very understandable that this question was posted here.

If you have questions about SDRs, Scanner and HF topics (such as antennas), we have dedicated forums for these types of questions. In the future, please consider using them to get some more direct responses. Posting the same question in more than one forum is a no-no here, so keep that in mind.

Here are the URLs for the forums that pertain directly to your questions... (links are always blue - just click on them and you'll be taken there)

Software Defined Radio - The RadioReference.com Forums
(if you have SDR related questions, come here....)

Receive Antennas (below 30MHz) - The RadioReference.com Forums

Scanner / Receiver Antennas - The RadioReference.com Forums

And now back to the topic at hand...

In addition we have a very extensive wiki which covers these subjects in some detail. It is open to all members, and you can edit almost any of the pages (well over 6000 of them and still growing). Here are the relevant articles you can use to help you along...

Scanner Antennas - The RadioReference Wiki

HF Antennas - The RadioReference Wiki

Loops - The RadioReference Wiki

Go grab a tall glass of your favourite tuning oil, sit back and relax. You'll be here awhile....Mike

 

[Hrafnseid]

Thanks for your replies.

When I posted the question here, it was as a result of having looked at the other alternative forums, and not being sure where to post, because my post is not about SDR only. That is my starting point, but as I also said, I would like to have antennas that fit both my current setup (SDR) and a future purchase of a communications receiver.

I am interested in covering as large a frequency range as possible, of course, and unless I'm mistaken, with the upconverter attached to my SDR, I would thus have a frequency range of 100kHz to 2200MHz, meaning with my current level of understanding, cannot see how the Antennacraft ST-2 would help with that since it starts at 25MHz.

I will take a look at the Wellbrook antennas. I must've forgotten about it when I wrote down the other antennas, as I had seen it before. Thanks for the reminder!

I posted my question here, as I thought it was related to both SDR and communications receiver, and wasn't sure about posting it in an antenna specific forum due to my line of thinking, that of having a selection of antennas giving a wide range.

But I'll keep reading the forums and the Wiki.

 

[teufler]

du kan også bruke en tv-antenne. Tv-signaler går ut på om de samme frekvensene som noen othersignals. Jeg kjenner flere folk som bruker dem, og få gode resultater. Du må komme opp med noen form for kontakt, for å matche dine radioer, men dette er en antenne som du sannsynligvis har opp og kan bruke.