HELP SETTING UP SHORTWAVE

[marshallross]

Hello,

I'm just trying to set up my first shortwave radio (Sangean ATS-909X). I'm thinking of trying the end fed antenna idea. Please read what I'm trying to do and give advice on what's wrong with this idea and/or what I need to accomplish this. So, I'm thinking of throwing one end of an antenna line up in a tree near my house, running it through the eave of my house into the attic, connecting to a 9:1 UNUN and running a coax cable from the attic, down the wall, under the house and up into the floor of my room and connecting that to my Sangean. The problem is, I don't know how to connect the coax into the external antenna port on the Sangean. Any ideas?

 

[popnokick]

Have you read this entire thread? Rate / Critique My Antenna Setup Please
Also, you can get a pigtail adapter with one end male to match the plug on your Sangean radio and the other end female to accept the plug on the coaxial cable. If you are building your own longwise / EFHW then yes, you'll need a 9:1 UNUN. But if you're purchasing a pre-made SWL longwire / end-fed then it is likely to come with the necessary UNUN transfomer.

 

[marshallross]

Thank you for responding. I hope you can help out just a little bit more with a few more questions....

I know I am already going to throw one end of the antenna wire as high as I can into a tree on the corner of my house, then feed the other end into the 9:1. I have another tree on the opposite side of the house and I am thinking of doing the same with that one as well. Meaning, two antenna wires thrown into two separate trees and the other ends being fed back into the same 9:1 unun. Will the extra tree improve reception or overkill you think? Basically at the end of my house it will look like a Y, with two antenna wires going to the same UNUN. What do you think?

 

[w2xq]

Portable radios can overload their front ends--produce spurious signals--with too many strong signals. If you are in an urban or suburban location near local broadcast stations, a lot of wire is more hindrance than help.

Strong SW signals can have the same effects.

I usually do not use anything more than 15 or 20 feet of wire--a spool antenna commonly sold with portables--on my SONY ICF-SW7600GR portable.

I wouldn't invest time or resources into something like you describe without some KISS experimentation. HTH. YMMV.

 

[popnokick]

W2XQ makes a good point regarding overloading your receiver. You might want to consider a preselector such as this to help attenuate strong signals - MFJ-1046, RECEIVER PRE-SELECTOR, 1.6 - 33 MHz
... and there are others out there as well.

 

[air-scan]

I use 10 ft of wire just hanging out the window. I think it's I am guessing 16 gauge wire. Seems to do fine with 75/80/40 meters on the Eton Elite Executive which is pretty sensitive on HF. I still get overload from WWCR 9980 during the day here in Oklahoma. Distance between Oklahoma and Tennessee on 31m band is close enough to be considered 'local' or could be just I am in the beamed path of the transmitting antennas at WWCR.

Basically its just 10 ft wire soldered to a 3.5mm mono audio plug connected to the radio's antenna jack. It's receive only. Experiment with it.

If i had a meter and the right components I could implement a small circuit using SMA components inside the plug sleeve that ensures a 50 ohm impedance and see what the difference is.

My reception recorded last night:

Amateur radio bands are a great spot on the dial to test your reception because they use 1.5kw or less.