I am new to SW listening and in the process of setting up a 90' 'L-shape longwire. The cell tower is 2 blocks away. Am I wasting my time? Will my orientation make any difference? I have a Eton field radio with both an 'F' and wire clip antenna connections. I have been reading a lots of posts and reviewed 2 of the antenna books. Thanks in advance for your replies, Tom
EFLW antenna and neighboring cell tower?
- Thread starter hc18flyer
- Start date
- Status
K4EET
Chaplain
Hi @hc18flyer Tom and welcome to Radio Reference!
You are doing the right thing by reading books and postings here. What model Eton receiver do you have?
As for the cell tower down the road from you, that should not be a big concern because the shortwave bands are far removed from the cellular bands. You should also be physically far enough away from their transmitters and antennas (2 blocks) that you will also not receive any fundamental overload to your receiver's front end. I would say you are good to go.
Orientation-wise, you can experiment with that so that you receive the best reception from the area that you want to focus on. Your antenna, while it is not what is known as an omni-directional antenna, will pick up signals from all directions. It will just pick up signals better in some directions than others. But I can assure you that you are going to have a lot of interesting broadcast stations to tune in to regardless of your antenna's basic orientation.
So tell us a little more about yourself. What do you hope to hear? Are you going to send out QSL reports? Do you have an electrical or electronics background? Etc., etc., etc.
Looking forward to seeing more of your posts. Cheers my friend! Dave K4EET
You are doing the right thing by reading books and postings here. What model Eton receiver do you have?
As for the cell tower down the road from you, that should not be a big concern because the shortwave bands are far removed from the cellular bands. You should also be physically far enough away from their transmitters and antennas (2 blocks) that you will also not receive any fundamental overload to your receiver's front end. I would say you are good to go.
Orientation-wise, you can experiment with that so that you receive the best reception from the area that you want to focus on. Your antenna, while it is not what is known as an omni-directional antenna, will pick up signals from all directions. It will just pick up signals better in some directions than others. But I can assure you that you are going to have a lot of interesting broadcast stations to tune in to regardless of your antenna's basic orientation.
So tell us a little more about yourself. What do you hope to hear? Are you going to send out QSL reports? Do you have an electrical or electronics background? Etc., etc., etc.
Looking forward to seeing more of your posts. Cheers my friend! Dave K4EET
Someone thought it was a good idea to install a cell tower on an existing 110'+ tall power line tower that is 60' away from two HF antennas and 120' away from my scanner RX antennas. If they have turned it up, it is not causing me enough of a problem. I mostly monitor 500 MHz and down. I have another cell tower 650' away that I know is up and running and I'm still okay.
For HF, your concern would be with nearby AM broadcast stations. You can find an RTL-SDR AM broadcast filter for under $20 on Amazon when they're in stock. Still, you may not have an issue at your location.
For HF, your concern would be with nearby AM broadcast stations. You can find an RTL-SDR AM broadcast filter for under $20 on Amazon when they're in stock. Still, you may not have an issue at your location.
I have the Grundig edition, purchased a few years ago, and never tried to tune in SW. I do not have an electronics background. Have VHF handhelds and repeaters at work, as well as with my volunteer Fire and EMS. Just spent an hour at a Comm Co. getting coax and connectors! Should have done it myself. Traveling for work and need to get back on the road. More later
K4EET
Chaplain
Very good Tom. Well you will definitely pick up broadcast stations and the better the antenna system, the better the reception will be. You might be interested in keeping a log of the stations that you hear and even sending reports to those stations. If so, take a look at this thread:
Logs - Anyone have a Microsoft Access Database or Excel Workbook for SWL Logging?
Back in June 2011, there was a thread where three or four members were posting links to their SWL Logbooks that were based on Microsoft Excel. That thread has long since been closed and the links to the logbooks are no longer valid. The thread was...
Have fun Tom!
Cheers! Dave
jim202
Member
Welcome to the group here. There are a number of people that get on the group here that are very technical and help those asking for help.
One question I have is how are you going to hold up the ends of your antenna? The reason I ask is that if your going to use trees, you might consider getting an outside door spring to use at the tree ends. The reason is the trees will move around and bend in the high winds. The copper wire is no match for trying to keep two trees from moving and snapping the wire.
Take a screw in hook in the tree with the spring and put some tension on the spring to keep the wire up. Now when the wind blows, the door spring will give and save your antenna.
You can get the sort of silver colored door springs at most hardware stores. They are about 18 inches to 24 inches long and work well.
The reason I say to use a screw in hook is so you don't have the tree bark growing over the rope or wire that would be used to go around the tree. It doesn't take that long for the bark to start growing over anything wrapped tightly around a branch or trunk of the tree.
Jim
One question I have is how are you going to hold up the ends of your antenna? The reason I ask is that if your going to use trees, you might consider getting an outside door spring to use at the tree ends. The reason is the trees will move around and bend in the high winds. The copper wire is no match for trying to keep two trees from moving and snapping the wire.
Take a screw in hook in the tree with the spring and put some tension on the spring to keep the wire up. Now when the wind blows, the door spring will give and save your antenna.
You can get the sort of silver colored door springs at most hardware stores. They are about 18 inches to 24 inches long and work well.
The reason I say to use a screw in hook is so you don't have the tree bark growing over the rope or wire that would be used to go around the tree. It doesn't take that long for the bark to start growing over anything wrapped tightly around a branch or trunk of the tree.
Jim
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked
