[Hallicrafters] Receiving Antenna help...

[Charlie]

Jim,

If you're only going to be listening, any random hunk of wire will work. 
Even ten feet of old lamp cord strung over a window will allow some 
reception.  I wouldn't waste my money of some "fancy schmancy" commercial 
antenna, UNLESS you plan to transmit someday.

Try for at least 50 feet of wire outside in the clear and you'll hear all 
you could want.  The stuff you bought at RS is fine.   Just don't let it 
short out on the gutters or other grounded metal objects.   Get the wire as 
high up as practical and use an insulator on each end.  Tie it up in a tree 
(s), or whatever tall support you can find as long as it's in the clear.  It 
doesn't even have to be straight.   Bent 90 degrees and long is better than 
straight/short.

The SX-99 is a relatively good short-wave receiver having an RF amplifier 
stage which will outperform the lesser radios that don't have this feature 
such as the S-53 or S-38.   A huge (expensive) antenna will only make the 
S-meter read a tad higher.
 Don't worry about matching the antenna to the radio.  It's only important 
for transmitting.

By the way, my Novice station receiver was an SX-99 and I used a 75 foot 
piece of the exact same type of wire you bought.  It was tied from my 
bedroom window to a tree and was 20 feet off the ground max.    I didn't 
know about T/R switches so I had a  40 meter (66' long) dipole (fed with 70 
Ohm twin lead) for transmitting and I worked a LOT of stations in the late 
50's with that simple receiving antenna, so I can speak with some 
experience.

Good Luck with it all and I hope you decide to join the HAM ranks someday.

73' Charlie k3ICH






----- Original Message ----- 

-- Original Message -----
From: jew123 at juno.com
Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2006 4:14 PM
To: Hallicrafters at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Hallicrafters] Receiving Antenna help...

Last year I rebuilt a SX-99.  Now I need help designing a good
receiving antenna to use with it.  I picked up the ARRL Antenna Book
from the local library.  However it appears like ever antenna
discussed in this book is for use with a transmitter operated by a
mathematician (LOL).  Now I know that an antenna for transmitting will
also work for receiving, but I do not transmit.  And since you are
applying high voltage RF to the antenna to transmit, these antennas
seem to be complex and expensive to build.

I have purchased 2 70-foot rolls of #14 Radio Shack antenna wire and
10 insulators off the Internet and need some suggestions for antenna
options, other than high and long.  Can one make homemade lightning
arrestors?  I cannot seem to locate arrestors anywhere.

Jim Winkler
Centennial, CO



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