[Boatanchors] simple Rx antenna in an attic?
Eugene Hertz
ehertz at tcaf.org
Tue Jan 25 14:24:58 EST 2005
Hello All,
I am putting a simple shack together (my first) in my new house. The snow on the ground and the temperature outside (ny) is such that I will probably wait till spring to put up a Tx antenna (plus I have to pass my test first anyway!). In the meantime, I thought I would get my receivers running (various hammarlunds and a harris rf-590H). And thought I might just run an antenna strictly for Rx in my attic. My attic (which is a finished playroom) has a crawl space the length of the house which is 55'. Figure I could make an antenna 50' in length.
So here's my question. What would you do? Would you make a simple straight wire antenna (is that called random wire)? Or would you run coax to the center of the run (say 25') and then run the inner conductor 25' out and the shield conductor 25' back in the same direction that the coax came from and make a dipole? My interests are general coverage as well as ham bands.
I figure this should only be an rx antenna because my children play up in the playroom. For the future, how far away from people should an antenna be carrying, say 100W of power?
Last question. I purchased an antenna tuner (160M-10M for when I get my transmitter on the air (CE 100V). I was wondering if this could be used to help tune the Rx antenna? Since I can't use an SWR meter, what would be a good approach to tuning? Simply move the dials for best reception?
I lied, here is my last question. So if you recommend a dipole, what kind of coax? RG58, 58U? 59? 8? And also, if I were to use PL-259 connectors, do people recommend "compression", solder, crimp? what? I went to radio shack yesterday and was bewildered and confused about my options.
THANKS!!!!!
Eugene
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