[HCRA] Longwire antenna for shortwave listening

[Steve Rodowicz]

Hi Bob,

Congratulation on the jr op.

The nice thing about a casual SWL antenna is it's noncritical nature.

When in high school, I had a end-fed random length wire (about 60' or 70' 
long) between the rafters
in the attic of my parents single story house. Heard more signals than I 
was capable of making full
use of, also avoided all weather problems. Antenna has been there for over 
30 years without failure.

Currently I use a 30' or 40' end-fed wire running between the floor joists 
in my basement for casual
listening and checking out radios on the bench. Designed it by taking a 
"hank" of wire, stripping one
end, connected it to the receiver in use and ran it to the bottom of the 
floor joists, continued from that
point until I ran out of clear space and/or wire.

It would be nice to have an outside antenna, but the inside antenna does 
reasonably well, was quick
and easy to do and is "bulletproof". It is unlikely to fall down unless the 
house falls down and then the
failure of the antenna is a trivial matter.

Don't sweat the small stuff, put up a wire and it will work.
Insulated or noninsulated work equally well.
Modern flourescents are not usually a large problem.
Feeding with coax just complicates the project.

Go for fancier antennas as his interest grows.
Planning and erecting those antennas will be part of the fun.

73 & Happy Holidays,
Steve - N1SR


At 02:46 PM 12/19/2004, Bob Lafleur wrote:
>______________________________________________
>-------Hampden County Radio Association-------
>-----------e-mail list (reflector)-------------
>______________________________________________
>I'd like to set up a longwire antenna at my parents' house so that my
>son can do some shortwave listening and possibly get interested in the
>radio hobby (that's how I got interested)...
>
>A couple of questions:
>
>Is there anything special I should do? Any special kind of wire I should
>use? What's an optimum length?
>
>I've got a 500' spool of 12 gauge solid copper wire that's coated in
>plastic. Is this OK to use or should I use bare wire? Is solid or
>stranded better?
>
>Is there anything special I should do when running the wire into the
>house to the receiver? There are a lot of flourescent lights in the
>house so I'm worried about them creating too much noise... Should I
>terminate the single wire outside and bring it in via coax or something
>like that? How do I go about this?
>
>Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.
>
>Bob Lafleur, NQ1C
>Bob_lafleur at technologist.com
>------Hampden County Radio Association-------
>An ARRL Special Services Club for over 50 years
>------------http://www.hcra.org------------
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