Antenna recommendations?

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CSL126

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Dec 19, 2002
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Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Hey guys, I have an old realistic dx-302 and was interested in doing some uscg monitoring. I was just curious to see what types of antennas you guys might recommend. I have plenty of space in my back yard to set up a longwire, but i'm open for other ideas as well. I can attempt to make a home brew antenna, but buying one would probably yield better results :)

Also, are most tactical operations of the uscg handled via vhf/uhf or can I expect to hear a lot of activity on hf? I guess it all depends on how far away from shore they are... correct?

Thanks in advance guys!
 

ka3jjz

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Jul 22, 2002
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Bowie, Md.
As we're discussing antennas, this should be in that forum...however...

We have so many HF antenna designs linked in our wiki that it's hard to know where to start...(anything in blue - or in the wiki, underlined - is a link)

http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/HF_Antennas

However given that the 302 is known for stability issues and problems with spurs, it's unlikely to work well with a real longwire (which is a misnomer in most every case - that's a very specific type of antenna that, like its name implies is very long...). I probably wouldn't put more than 40-50 foot on the antenna and even that might be too much. The PAR SWL antenna is a very good starting point, and is well supported. You can find numerous comments on it here and on EHam.

How much activity you hear on HF is not as dependent on being close to the shoreline as it is on yet another topic - propagation. We have a wiki article with links to that as well - stick with the AE4RV link for now...

http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/HF_Propagation

73 Mike
 
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N1BHH

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Mar 31, 2007
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Jackson Square, East Weymouth, MA.
You can buy some speaker wire and make an antenna from that. I once bought some speaker wire that had a 1/8 plug on one end and stripped and tinned ends on the other. It was 50 feet and I just separated the wires for about 25 feet and used that as an antenna on an older Radio Shack portable shortwave receiver I owned, the DX440. It was the same as the Sangean 803 but with the Radio Shack brand name on it. That worked real good, just hung from the eaves using a little light twine. It can be a whole bunch of fun building antennas on your own, and you get to learn so much from the experience.

I have even built indoor antennas made from copper tape run around the room perimeter and just hooked to a radio with a clip lead. There is so much experimenting you can do and save yourself a bundle of cash by doing some experimenting. That is the fun part of the radio hobby, exploration. The sky is not the limit.
 
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