Post Pics&Videos Of Your SWL Antenna!

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SCPD

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mstephens741, if you should need more height, a friend of mine used a five gallon bucket, two bags of concrete mix from Lowes, ten feet of pipe. We mixed the concrete, poured into the bucket, centered the pipe and let it set, cured for two days. Took a razor knife, made slits and stripped the plastic bucket from the cured concrete. It makes a nice portable and stable stand, yes it is slightly heavy to move, but takes a lot to blow over. You can also paint it, stand and mast, and cut to the height that you need.
 

mstephens741

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These kind of loops don't require height, so you're fine at a few feet above ground. I would double-check with Pixel but you can probably paint it if you wish -- for that extra concealment.

Thanks Nick. Yeah, the instruction manual also says you can conceal it with a bush, vine or something on that order. That may be a bit kitschy to me, but painting sounds ok. I think it looks kind of cool as is.
 

Rt169Radio

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mstephens741, if you should need more height, a friend of mine used a five gallon bucket, two bags of concrete mix from Lowes, ten feet of pipe. We mixed the concrete, poured into the bucket, centered the pipe and let it set, cured for two days. Took a razor knife, made slits and stripped the plastic bucket from the cured concrete. It makes a nice portable and stable stand, yes it is slightly heavy to move, but takes a lot to blow over. You can also paint it, stand and mast, and cut to the height that you need.

You should add more detailed instructions on how to do that and what you exactly used to the RR wiki. It sounds pretty good.
 

SCPD

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I receive HF quite well with the G5RV and the Softrock or whatever receiver I am using. I get minimal RFI. See pic of SDR screeen on an average night on 40 Meters.

This really has nothing to do with your antenna. It's location. Your rural location is what helps you the most. You could probably put just about any antenna up and have good results.

Just about any antenna would work well and if you don't have much RFI then you're very lucky. With more and more digital devices coming in to houses, it's probably going to get worse -- although it does seem like more manufacturer's are starting to pay attention to RFI -- finally.

Just to be clear, I was referring to the G5RV as a transmitting antenna. For Rx, it really doesn't matter. You can string up an un-un and a single 50ft wire and get great results depending on your location, atmospheric conditions, neighborhood RFI levels, etc.
 

SCPD

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You should add more detailed instructions on how to do that and what you exactly used to the RR wiki. It sounds pretty good.

:D

Do you want molecular breakdowns of each element involved? I think it was pretty detailed as is...
 

Rt169Radio

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:D

Do you want molecular breakdowns of each element involved? I think it was pretty detailed as is...


:D Possibly, well more like what kind of concrete, poles, bucket, and how they centered the pole etc.
 

ridgescan

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Well we got some very cool visuals with details of effective SWL setups so far for folks to refer to. I want to see more! Show us them wires:)
 

k9rzz

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Somebody wanted to see my 'droopy wire'. I took this while looking for Perseid Meteors earlier this week. The wire goes from the back of the house, to the top of that pine tree (~80 ft) behind the FM radio antennas (~40 ft), then droops down to a low of 6 feet across the yard. The wire is -supposed- to go from the top of that pine, across to the top of an oak tree, but the rope broke. Gotta fix these antennas!
icon6.gif


 
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ridgescan

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k9rzz, that goes on record as probably the most beautiful antenna/nature image we'll ever see in here-thank you for adding yours in!
If you would, please tell how it's fed, and any rf ground if any. I know the majority of your DX is from digging around the low bands so you apparently have a decent noise floor due to environment or whatever.
 

k9rzz

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No ground. No 'balun'. Wire -> radio. Sometimes I put in a hefty coil to work as an RF choke when I get AM BCB slop. It works too

Gotta ask ... wouldn't that be a cool photo with a meteor streaking across the sky?? LOL
 

kilokat7

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K9RZZ what a beautiful picture, thanks for sharing!

I thought about contributing to this thread, but looking at a wire laying on the ground isn't nearly as exciting as seeing the pics posted here so far :)
 

ridgescan

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K9RZZ what a beautiful picture, thanks for sharing!

I thought about contributing to this thread, but looking at a wire laying on the ground isn't nearly as exciting as seeing the pics posted here so far :)
Well, forgive the pokin' kat-but being that the kilokat Phased Bogs system is pretty legendary around here, I think it'd be cool to at least post a pic of the feedpoint to illustrate the whole idea, then give us the details if you are ok with it, then leave the wires to our imagination.
I am pretty sure your noisefloor there is like majoco's-0.0 right? Probably only suffer meditative subterrainian harmonics:D
 

BDM123

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K9RZZ what a beautiful picture, thanks for sharing!

I thought about contributing to this thread, but looking at a wire laying on the ground isn't nearly as exciting as seeing the pics posted here so far :)


C'mon don't be shy. Here is one shot guys. 'Kat is laying down one leg of the BOG :)

sp000886.jpg
 

BDM123

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No no, ya got it all wrong. That is the twisted pair for the BOG which can be seen on what looks like telephone poles :p
 

Token

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I have never actually taken a picture of any of my antennas, but I have accidentally captured a few in other images.

My old BUD, 10 years ago, has since been replaced with a 14 foot fiberglass dish with AZ and EL drives, this is not, naturally, an SWL antenna by any stretch, but there is a dipole across the image behind the dish ;) :

large.jpg


This is my old 20 meter 3 element monobander on the little tower, at the time of this picture (6 or 7 years ago) my tribander was on the larger tower. This was not an SWL specific antenna, but I ended up using it for SWL quite often:

large.jpg


And this is my tribander on the little tower a year or two ago (same tower as in the monobander image), it was moved to this tower after I got the SteppIR for the big tower, there are also the ends of a couple dipoles (40 and 60 meters I think) in this image. Again, not strictly an SWL antenna, but gets used for a lot of SWL work:

large.jpg


I keep taking pictures from this angle over the years because I can set indoors out of the rain and still see the lightning approaching from its most common direction.

T!
 
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