"-=jd=-" wrote in message
...
On Thu 15 Apr 2004 07:22:57p, "MC" wrote in
message :
I'm picking up AFN on their Puerto Rico freq. of 7.507Mhz. Now this may
not seem a remarkable thing but I am in the South East of the UK. Again
not remarkable but being new to this Shortwave stuff, I have no idea
what I have done to enable me to pick up this station. Yesterday I
purchased some common "household" wire (not copper). As I live on the
first floor, but have full "sole" use of the garden I attached one end
of the wire near to my entrance door (18'/20' from the ground) and it
slopes about 60' down to the end fence panel at the bottom of the
garden. I have then run the wire back along the top of the fence about
another 42' (I have measured by counting the 6 foot fence panels) and
about 4' from the ground. This gives a sort of wedge shape wire antenna
(as opposed to an inverted L).
{snipped}
My non-scientific rule of thumb is:
1. Assess your situation.
2. String as much wire as you can, as high as you can, along the best path
available.
If 100' long by 4' high is all you can do - then that's all you can do.
That's your foundation. What's left is the "tweaking" and "accesorizing".
There are so many variables that you could probably say every situation is
different. Someone else you know in a similar situation could string a
similar antenna and (frustratingly) obtain (largely or slightly) different
results. Your best bet? Educate yourself (the web will take you pretty far
on the subject) and experiment with the cheap/easy stuff first. Your best
bet for finding the direction you want to go is from experimentation.
What are a couple of cheap/easy ideas? Install a known good ground and a
matching transformer to better transfer antenna-to-coax. The effect (if
any) may be large or slight.
You might also want to peruse the links at:
http://www.hard-core-dx.com/nordicdx/antenna/
It has a lot of good info if you are looking for ideas. What you glean
from there can be used to google-up some more info.
-=jd=-
--
Good link. Thanks.
MC