Sohortwave antenna help

[g682583]

I HAVE A KENWOOD TS-430 RIG AND i AM JUST USING FOR RECEIVING HER IN MY CONDO. WHAT CONDO ANTENNA WOULD BE THE BEST FOR MOST BANDS EO RECEIVE ONLY !


THANKS IN ADVANCE !

FRANK

[ka3jjz]

No need to shout, Frank (all caps). We can all hear you quite well.

There are several possibilities here - but first, are you up where you can get to an attic or crawlspace? This vastly increases the number of possible solutions. Your basic problem will be noise - being indoors, any HF antenna will be more susceptible to it. Loops are the basic answer, but there are some things you can vary and do without much effort. Do you know how to solder, and can build some simple circuits?

73 Mike

[ab3a]

ka3jjz's comments are good. Here's the bottom line with antennas. Anything indoors will probably have to contend with the near field effect of every household appliance you have. You'll do best of all if you use a shielded loop antenna; however, it still isn't ideal.

One good test would be to simply take some wire, run it round the room and attach it to the center pin of the antenna jack. It won't be matched. It won't pick up a whole lot, but it will at least give you some idea of what you're up against. If you can actually hear some stations without too much background noise, then it may be worth the time/money/effort to work on a shielded loop antenna.

If you can't hear anything at all because of local interference, then a shielded loop probably won't improve things enough to make it worth investing in.

[ka3jjz]

There are solutions, however. While a shielded loop is one, there's a cheaper one - and it's a good learning experience in any case. A wire loop can be constructed using a 9:1 transformer and wire wrapped around a crawlspace or attic in any one of a number of patterns. Feed it with coax and see what happens. These transformers are cheap to build, and are well documented in the SW SWL yahoo group, or you can get one of the pre-made ones. Either way, well under USD100 and you've learned something

73 Mike