ridgescan
Member
Real impressive shots T. Glad you put them here!
Post Pics&Videos Of Your SWL Antenna!
- Thread starter ridgescan
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Awesome shots!
n0nhp
Member
Ok, the camera, weather and motivation finally got a round tuit.
First picture from left to right, Discone for Aircraft feed on Broadcastify (behind tree). 800MHz station master to shack for RTL etc., Discone for scanners in shack through multicoupler, 450 Station master for Left side Broadcastify scanner, Discone for Right Side Broadcastify scanner, TX discone to IC 7000 / center point for G5RV and finally the 160M SWL receive antenna multicoupled to Global tuners receiver, WR G303/ WR G33DDC and one flying lead for random projects. The tower with the 11 element 2M beam has another 10 foot section and a 5 element 10M beam that need to be added if I can talk my electrician neighbor into the use of his bucket truck for an afternoon sometime when he drives it home, it has not been high priority.
There are several pounds of aluminum in various states of disrepair on the roof and next to the shed waiting for the right time and motivation to get into the air. Always good to have a few projects in the wings when the "are you busy?" question pops up.
Second and third pictures show why the location is a pretty good one for radios. The valley floor (east end of the property is around 100' below the roof line of the house. I don't have a real good west horizon however. Oh well, it serves. Those are the east and west terminations to the 160M dipole.
Bruce
First picture from left to right, Discone for Aircraft feed on Broadcastify (behind tree). 800MHz station master to shack for RTL etc., Discone for scanners in shack through multicoupler, 450 Station master for Left side Broadcastify scanner, Discone for Right Side Broadcastify scanner, TX discone to IC 7000 / center point for G5RV and finally the 160M SWL receive antenna multicoupled to Global tuners receiver, WR G303/ WR G33DDC and one flying lead for random projects. The tower with the 11 element 2M beam has another 10 foot section and a 5 element 10M beam that need to be added if I can talk my electrician neighbor into the use of his bucket truck for an afternoon sometime when he drives it home, it has not been high priority.
There are several pounds of aluminum in various states of disrepair on the roof and next to the shed waiting for the right time and motivation to get into the air. Always good to have a few projects in the wings when the "are you busy?" question pops up.
Second and third pictures show why the location is a pretty good one for radios. The valley floor (east end of the property is around 100' below the roof line of the house. I don't have a real good west horizon however. Oh well, it serves. Those are the east and west terminations to the 160M dipole.
Bruce
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Now that's a nice setup! And it looks like a nice area too.
ridgescan
Member
n0nhp very nice home and plenty of room for that array-I envy you that land! So which antenna is used for SWL-or do you switch up for specific bands? How's the signal-to-noise up there and what rf grounding if any?
n0nhp
Member
The 160M dipole is the SWL antenna through a multicoupler. Being a dipole, an RF ground is not required, it is a balanced antenna. All antennas are grounded through an entry panel. I will occasionally fire up the IC7000 on the G5RV and run PCALE. I am mostly a Utility listener. You are welcome to judge the S/N for your self, all it takes is a free membership at GlobalTuners - On-line remotely controlled tuners
Although you might have to ask the GHFS crowd for permission to tune.
With that much antenna, I am having to run quite a bit of attenuation on most of the receivers and that drops the noise a bunch. I also had to place a MW filter on the input to the IC-R1000 to keep from having front end overload products all over HF.
Bruce
Although you might have to ask the GHFS crowd for permission to tune.
With that much antenna, I am having to run quite a bit of attenuation on most of the receivers and that drops the noise a bunch. I also had to place a MW filter on the input to the IC-R1000 to keep from having front end overload products all over HF.
Bruce
n0nhp
Member
The water visible is an abandon gravel pit. Not visible is the Redlands Power canal at the bottom of the hill and the Colorado just beyond the gravel pit. I sit above the Connected Lake State Park.
Bruce
Bruce
SpectreOZ
Member
ridgescan
Member
Nice one-what antenna is that? Looks like that one by Icom?
majoco
Stirrer
Looks like a T2FD - very good antenna - initially you think it's no good as it's so quiet - then you realise that the signals just pop out of the quiet background. That's the beauty of low impedance antennas - not so prone to picking up static crashes in the tropical bands. Pity they're so ugly! :roll:
SpectreOZ
Member
Yeah spot majoco on it's a T2FD, TTFD or BTFD... this variant uses a 390 Ohm terminating resistor, 4:1 balun and 75 Ohm feeder line although I'm thinking perhaps a 450/500 Ohm & 9:1 balun configuration may have been a better choice.
Performance comparison it a little hit and miss sometimes it will (as mojoco describes) pull an unknown signal out of the pile up/hash and other times my random longwire (slung 5 ft lower) will trounce it on receive.
Performance comparison it a little hit and miss sometimes it will (as mojoco describes) pull an unknown signal out of the pile up/hash and other times my random longwire (slung 5 ft lower) will trounce it on receive.
I tried one several years ago and it was the pits for me. I admittedly didn't know as much about antennas back then either.
For a T2FD to work really well, it needs a large field space with *no* metal objects, such as a a garage or shed. A high mounting would be ideal. I think they recommend 30ft on the ends and 50ft in the middle.
As some have figured out however, for receiving purposes, it's really not that much better than a dipole. (The antenna was designed as a broadband Tx antenna.)
k9rzz
Member
It's also very low, so it's main radiation pattern is pretty much mostly straight up.
SpectreOZ
Member
Yeah it's only 30ft high at one and around 15ft at the other end... still it's mounted about the same height as the previous random longwire which worked very well indeed, but you don't know if you don't try out these things eh?
Here's my current receive antenna I use in my bedroom for nighttime listening, and I'm not in my radio shack.
A Slinky Jr. tacked to the wall connected with an alligator test lead, and a wire connected to ground to lower the noise a bit. Total cost about $10, and it works pretty well.
A Slinky Jr. tacked to the wall connected with an alligator test lead, and a wire connected to ground to lower the noise a bit. Total cost about $10, and it works pretty well.
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ridgescan
Member
Sorry I missed this one-pretty cool-I've heard about these. I have one laying around somewhere-I'll have to try it out on one of teh old Realistic Patrolmans. I have used a 15' metal tape measure before as a SWL antenna-same principle. If you have a 50' or more you could run it out some and see how it does.Here's my current receive antenna I use in my bedroom for nighttime listening, and I'm not in my radio shack.
A Slinky Jr. tacked to the wall connected with an alligator test lead, and a wire connected to ground to lower the noise a bit. Total cost about $10, and it works pretty well.
The Slinky Jr works well for what it is and the amount of space required. It works better than portable rollup antennas, and random wires strong up around the room.
My indoor resonant above 15mhz loop antenna. The hula hoop has a diameter of 20". The conductor you see on the loop is copper foil. The pickup loop is #14 guage copper. The tuning cap is a hi-Q 100pf air variable with porcelain insulators.
Yes, that is "zip cord" you see for the line going to my radio (Yaesu FRG-100). I've modified the receiver to have a true balanced input.
The little loop has copied good pics of SSTV from Europe on 27.700 USB sitting on the floor of my room, so it seems to work well for me.
Yes, that is "zip cord" you see for the line going to my radio (Yaesu FRG-100). I've modified the receiver to have a true balanced input.
The little loop has copied good pics of SSTV from Europe on 27.700 USB sitting on the floor of my room, so it seems to work well for me.
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ridgescan
Member
Neat one LF-sounds like you know your stuff too.
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