Icom IC-R75 Antenna gift suggestions

[fuzzymoto]

Icom IC-R75 Antenna RadioMaster P-30?

Its the holiday shopping season and I'm trying to give the gift of reception. I have a family member who has an NEW IC-R75. He's interested all sorts of listening but there is one problem. He has NO antenna. The R75 is sitting new in the box. I'd like to find him a good starter antenna. Nothing crazy since I suspect he won't be running wires outside or anything like that.

I'd like to find him something under $50 that is pretty much plug-and-play. No adapters, no coax to run....just something that will allow him to get the R75 up to speed and start listening. It will be indoor as I said but I have no objection to running a wire along the wall of ceiling. PLEASE no homemade suggestions. This is a gift. Is there such a simple antenna that he can plug in and go? I believe the R75 has and PL259 AND wire terminal connections but I'm not at all familiar with the connections.

Any suggestions?

 

[K2GOG]

is this antenan realy for you and your new R75?

what is the budget you are looking at? most of the smaller indoor or active antennas (not long wires that need to be put up outside) can cost quite a bit.


you may want to go here to look at some pricing (or ideas since you may be able to find some of them cheaper elsewhere)

http://rffun.com/catalog/sw_ant.html

pay close attention to teh active indoor antenna that go from .5-30Mhz or there abouts. Dont get anythign that is higher than 60Mhz as the R75 can not listen that high.

 

[fuzzymoto]

Nope not for me. I would have had it up LONG ago. No way I'd stare at a new R-75 fr aover a year and never power it up. Budget as I mentioned around $50.

I'll check out the site. Thanks

 

[fuzzymoto]

Would something like this work well AND plug directly into the R75?

http://rffun.com/catalog/sw_ant/1331.html

I hate to spend too much since I know it will only be a temporary stepping stone antenna.

 

[fuzzymoto]

or
http://cgi.ebay.com/STEALTH-SLINKY-...53QQihZ011QQcategoryZ4672QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[K6PCW]

I have an R-75 and am happy with my PAR End-Fedz !

The price is affordable, the quality is outstanding, and the customer support is superb! And the antenna works very well, as promised! Although designed for outdoor use ideally, there's no reason that it can't be used indoors, in a variety of configurations.

http://www.parelectronics.com/swl_end.htm

I purchased mine from Grove Electronics.
http://www.grove-ent.com/ANT8.html

Here are some reviews of this antenna at eHam.net:
http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/3707

 

[GrayWolfSA58]

i have a r 75 and have it hooked up to groves antenna the 70-80 $ one and it works great,

 

[GrayWolfSA58]

the wire

 

[brandon]

The PAR Endz-Fed antenna is absolutely the way to go. Very simple setup and it works great with low noise.

 

[fuzzymoto]

I assume I'll need some sort of adaptor cable to get this connected?

 

[ka3jjz]

Hardly. All you'd need (or need to build, it should be a trivial matter) is a length of coax with, if memory serves, nothing more than PL259s at either end. Since it's going to be inside, you could even get away with the smaller RG8X - I've used it indoors for many years, and it works reasonably well - certainly a lot easier to work with the the quad shield variety.

73s Mike

 

[gcgrotz]

I agree with the PAR suggestion. I have one, had it stapled to the wood fence for a while. Get a short coax jumper from RS, put the transformer/termination box inside your room and run the wire outside under a window. Throw it up to a tree, fence, carport, anything.

At a minimum, get 25 feet of small wire and connect it to the spring clip on the back of the R75. The problem with that is it tends to pick up all electrical noise in the room - PC, light dimmer, TV/VCR. Better to get it outside as much as possible.

Get the PAR Endfedz/SWL. I'm very happy with mine.

 

[fuzzymoto]

Can this PAR be used indoor in a limited space without having miles of wire running all over the place, for example can he just string up 10 feet or so?

Also I'll have to buy the cable somewhere (since I can't make any cables myself---really I can't). I assume this is a PL-259 on both ends?

 

[ka3jjz]

The wire can be bent any which way, however I would avoid bending it backwards upon itself - I'm not entirely sure that it would work too well in that configuration. You can put your own wire on it, as if you look at the pix and diagrams, the wire is connected by a spade lug or two.
In fact, if memory serves, at least some of the ads mention that you can replace the wire yourself.
As I mentioned before, yes, I'm pretty sure it's just 2 PL259s, one on either end. It's not tough putting a PL259 on coax - surely you know a ham or two that would be willing to help....73s Mike

 

[alins]

If mounting the PAR outside, how would one pass the antenna lead-in cable under a window? Please see photos ...

 

[K6PCW]

Just drill hole through glass. No problem! In my country, glass very cheap.

Seriously, a discretely located hole through the wall, perhaps drilled from inside an existing wall plate for a TV cable or telephone outlet, through to the exterior wall, where you could mount a small junction box, or just silicone seal the gap, or whatever floats your boat.

There are various methods for doing this, depending on your building material, local electrical codes, weather challenges, athstetic considerations, level of concealment, etc.

In my situation, my R-75 is at my desk, which is adjacent to our kitchen, which is centrally located within our house, at least 15 feet from the nearest windows, which are across the family room. I don't want wires and cables all over the place, needless to say.

So I ran the coax (RG58) up through the wall behind my desk up into the attic, out onto the roof, down the exterior wall behind the aluminum air conditioner conduit panel to the concrete patio, tapped it down into an expansion crack in the patio and concealed it in that crack out about ten feet to the edge of the patio, then through a short length of 1/2 " PVC sprinkler pipe buried under the dirt strip along the wood fence (to keep hedge roots, dog paws, etc. away from it).

From there I stapled the coax up the wood fence to an electrical junction box that I mounded about five feet up from the ground. The box is one of those Home Depot grey plastic jobs with a removal front panel (4 screws). I found it in the aisle with all the commercial electrical junction boxes, conduit, wire, etc. It's big enough to accomodate the PAR EndFedz transformer and coax cables and connectors.

From the EdFedz transformer, which is inside the junction box, I connected a rigid insulated wire (about 12 gauge, if I recall) to an 8' copper grounding rod directly below, which I sledge-hammered into the ground about 7' deep. (I bought the sledge hammer just for this purpose, but I'm sure it'll come in handy for smashing other things, too.)

I found the grounding rod at Home Depot in the same aisle where I found the junction box. You'll also need the little copper set-screw thing so you can attach the ground wire to the grounding rod.

I ran the PAR EndFedz 45' antenna wire from the junction box upward to a nearby Palm tree in a kinda sloped angle, running north/south. This configuration seems to work fairly well for my reception needs.

I also tried running the antenna wire along the fence itself, but since that places it just about six feet above ground level, the reception ability drops off somewhat.

Bottom line: experiment, and experiment some more. As you get more into this stuff, you'll want to try other configurations as you read about other folks' ideas and recommendations. That's half the fun and challenge of this hobby!

 

[K6PCW]

I forgot to include this in my previous post: It's the Monitoring Times review of the PAR End Fed Z EF-SWL Antenna, authored y Larry Van Horn, N5FPW.

http://www.monitoringtimes.com/html/mt2003reviews.html#PAR End Fed Z EF-SWL Antenna

 

[iMONITOR]

Ditto on the PAR!