Wire antenna

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DennisKink

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I am just getting into SW listening again after some 40 years,and I need to ask 2 questions.
I plan on setting up a wire antenna and need to know:
1) how long of a wire do I need and can it be TOO long
2) Does the wire need to be horizontally polarity,or will it being vertical hurt?

TIA

P.s. 3) Will a wire antenna work indoors?
 
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RogueSteward

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Length and horizontal vs vertical does matter, however, even with untuned random length wire antennas, you'll most likely be able to pick up decent shortwave broadcasts. I'm able to pick up shortwave across with a 1/4 wave 2m wire antenna I hoisted up into a tree. If I were to install a proper shortwave antenna, the incoming signal would be better. For example, when I had up a 102" wire antenna I made, I had excellent reception of shortwave.

With a sensitive enough receiver with proper filtering and a less than ideal antenna, you'll be surprised how much shortwave signal you can actually receive, however for the best shortwave experience, cut one to the proper length and install that the best you can.
 

TailGator911

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I am very satisfied with the end-fed PAL wire antenna that I have had for ten years or so. I use it with my Icom R75 and I hear international broadcasts just fine and the other night I was hearing Coast Guard cutters out of New Orleans. I have it about 30-feet up from my apex eave on the house to a tree the same height in the backyard, a 20-ft run of coax straight into the radio room. I run it into an old Grove TUN-4 preamp and feed out from that to the R75 with great results. The PAL wire antenna isn't that expensive, if I remember I think I paid about $59.99 ten years ago.


JD
kf4anc
 

ka3jjz

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I am pretty sure you are talking about the PAR (not PAL) antenna and that's sold by many distributors; but here's the source site

https://www.lnrprecision.com/endfedz/

While most any antenna will work indoors, it will be greatly compromised. Noise is ever present on HF, and your home is a veritable cornicopia of potential sources. Get it outside, away from the home as much as you can. If you can't, then consider the use of an active loop (altho it too will benefit from getting it as far from the home as you can, but the loop is less sensitive to your typical noise sources).

Yes, an antenna can be too long, and there are consequences for doing this. If you are using an inexpensive SDR or a portable, if the antenna is too big, it may overload it - causing signals to show up where they're not supposed to. And the antenna itself, depending on the kind of antenna you are building, will become more directional off its 2 ends (which may be something you want, particularly if you are using such antennas to hear distant MW stations, for example)

Generally vertical antennas are more sensitive to noise sources than their horizontal counterparts.

Mike
 

WA8ZTZ

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If you have been away from SWLing for 40 years you are in for some surprises. You may be hearing little or nothing is because many of the SW broadcast stations that were on the air back then have signed off... permanently. What has taken their place in many cases is noise of the QRM (man-made) variety form all kinds of electronic devices that didn't exist 40 years ago. In other words, the listening environment is much more challenging today.

What kind of a receiver do you have? What type of listening, broadcast, utility, ham? What frequencies, any AM BCB or LW or just HF SW? How much room do you have for an antenna?
 

ka3jjz

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While broadcast stuff is dying out (altho there's still some good stuff to be heard), utilities are exploding - the nearly constant logs of ALE digital sigs is just one portion of this. Utilities can be best described by using negative logic - if it isn't broadcast, ham or CB - it's a utility. Any good receiver combo can get in the fun with the voice and simpler modes such as ALE or HFDL...and the antenna is the other half of the equation

Mike
 

DennisKink

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If you have been away from SWLing for 40 years you are in for some surprises. You may be hearing little or nothing is because many of the SW broadcast stations that were on the air back then have signed off... permanently. What has taken their place in many cases is noise of the QRM (man-made) variety form all kinds of electronic devices that didn't exist 40 years ago. In other words, the listening environment is much more challenging today.

What kind of a receiver do you have? What type of listening, broadcast, utility, ham? What frequencies, any AM BCB or LW or just HF SW? How much room do you have for an antenna?

Yeah 40 years ago it was common to hear such stations as Radio Budapest and Radio Prague in English with no more than an extendable whip. I guess those were the good ‘ol days *sigh* As for my rig, I recently bought a Tecsun PL-380. Kind of cheap I guess, but wasn’t sure what could still be heard and didn’t want to sink a lot of money in the hobby just yet.
 

ka3jjz

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This is his radio...

https://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/portable/5902.html

Likely as not you won't be able to put much of an antenna on it - it does have a clip to the whip (which I abhor - too much chance of static electricity traveling down the whip and blowing an amplifier) but you could try putting a longer wire on it. Not too long - otherwise overloading is a real possibility. Stations start appearing where they don't belong, that's one symptom

Mike
 
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DennisKink

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Can you put something outside for an antenna? How much room have you got, if you can? Mike

Yeah I put up a wire to a tree today. It's probably 75 feet long and probably 25 feet in the air.Both ends are secured by paracord,so I think that should have an insulator on both ends.Connected to the expandable whip with an alligator clip. I tried it out at about 1 p.m. but I couldn't bring in much. Will try tonight.
How much room do I have? About 5 acres. :)
 

ka3jjz

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That might well be too much wire for that little radio, but we'll see. If there's a local/DX switch on that radio, play with that to see if it helps.

Basic rule of thumb - listen above 10 Mhz during the day, below that at night. Solar conditions purely suck, so you're going to need to hunt a bit, depending on what you want to hear. The reason for this is nicely introduced on this website - make sure your Flash player is active...

Propagation Primer - Flash Movie by AE4RV

We're moving into the summer months in the Northern Hemisphere, so if old Sol would cooperate, the higher bands should gradually improve (fingers crossed, but no promises)...Mike
 

WA8ZTZ

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That antenna may be a bit much for that portable and cause overloading which would be indicated by distorted and spurious reception. In any case, do not leave the antenna connected when not using the radio to avoid damaging the set from static electricity.

Doesn't look like that radio has sideband capability so utility listening is out as most of that uses USB (upper sideband). Hams use USB or LSB (lower) depending on the band.

We currently are at the bottom of solar cycle 24 which means that propagation especially on the higher frequencies will be quite poor. Try lower frequencies at night for best reception.

Not trying to discourage you. On the contrary, just letting you know what to expect so that you don't get discouraged.

With 5 acres available, you have plenty of room available for some really outstanding antenna installations with the right radio.

As for now, give that little portable a workout and see what you can hear. May even want to try some AM BCB DXing at night. Or even some FM DXing during the day (tropo and E skip season is here).
 

WA8ZTZ

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Try the 75' antenna as is and see what happens. It may be fine. Just be aware that if you do experience distortion that the antenna may be overloading the receiver.
 

ka3jjz

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One way this manifests itself is to hear local MW stations repeated on the HF bands. Another would be a signal on, say 6 Mhz, appearing where it doesn't belong, say 10 Mhz

Mike
 

nanZor

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One other option you can try with your wire is to NOT make any physical connection to the whip, but "close couple" the wire - insulated wire I'm assuming.

Extend the whip partway to maintain some sort of thicker sturdy extension. Wrap the external wire around it, again assuming insulated wire, and use something temporary and non-gummy like blue painters-tape to hold the turns (not critical) around the semi-extended whip.

Sometimes this non-direct connection beats an attenuator and a direct connection on very small radios.
 

DennisKink

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One other option you can try with your wire is to NOT make any physical connection to the whip, but "close couple" the wire - insulated wire I'm assuming.

Extend the whip partway to maintain some sort of thicker sturdy extension. Wrap the external wire around it, again assuming insulated wire, and use something temporary and non-gummy like blue painters-tape to hold the turns (not critical) around the semi-extended whip.

Sometimes this non-direct connection beats an attenuator and a direct connection on very small radios.

That’s a good idea since sometimes I can just bring the wire close to the radio and it will improve reception. Thanks.
 
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