HF Antenna

[CSL126]

What is a good HF antenna? what type of wiring should I use? and does the length of the wire matter with HF, because a long reel antenna came with my yatchboy 400 pe. I just want to try to hear aircraft over the atlantic.

 

[K2KOH]

That's somewhat of a loaded question. I happen to own a Yachtboy 400, and I can listen to Gander, New York, Shanwick, Santa Maria with just the whip antenna it comes with. If you want to listen to the weaker ones, like Dakar, or maybe some Pacific comms, then a simple wire from Radio Shack will do the trick. It consists of a fifty foot long copper wire, with an insulated lead in. You can solder an alligator clip onto the insulated wire and then clip it to the antenna. Be forewarned...once you do that, set your Local/DX switch to local, because the receiver will overload.

I hope this helps. Have fun!

 

[CSL126]

Hey, thanks for the reply! I did go to radioshack and bought some copper wire. I didn't really get the results that I was hoping for. It did make a somewhat noticeable difference though. Do you have any other suggestions? Also note that I would consider putting a good deal of money into this.

 

[N_Jay]

Hey, thanks for the reply! I did go to radioshack and bought some copper wire. I didn't really get the results that I was hoping for. It did make a somewhat noticeable difference though. Do you have any other suggestions? Also note that I would consider putting a good deal of money into this.

Start by spending a bit of that money on a new fangled device, that is 100% guaranteed to make every antenna work better.

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[Pro-95]

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
ROFLMAO!

Nothing like a bit of knowledge to make an educated decision.

But my suggestion: Buy the product from HRO or AES, ARRL takes way to long to get around to shipping. :wink:

 

[ka3jjz]

Those books are some of the best on the market; anything written by the Radio Society of Great Britain, along with the ARRL, will have more than enough to keep you busy for a very long time.

There are several pubs sold by Universal Radio which are also very good. Like the other poster suggested, nothing like a little education.....

But perhaps another question here is in order - exactly what were you expecting when you put that wire out? Unlike scanner freqs, HF is subject to the whims of propagation - one day, you might hear lots of signals, the next not nearly that many. That's very normal. In addition, you can't expect to hear much below 10 mhz or so during the daytime- you need to stay higher. The opposite is true at night.

73s Mike