I'm going up on my roof later this week to repair and paint my chimney. I'd
like to take the opportunity to at least start an a.m. broadcast band
antenna (long wire??) using my chimney as the anchor for one end.

What kind of wire shoulds I buy?. Alumimum, copper? What gauge? What can I
use for insulators. What's a good way to ground it?

I have lots of trees in both the front and back yards for the "other" end.
Given this flexibility, about how long should the wire be. Would the wire
ideally be parallel with the (flat) terrain of the yard?

Directionality: Assuming most of the a.m. station I want to DX are in the
general direction of southeast of my house, should I run the wire SE - NW or
NE-SW.

Downlead to receiver??? (receiver has external antenna input -- ground and
"hot".)

Is there a Web-site I could/should investigate or a more appropriate
news-group?

Many thanks,

Dave Pitzer
Pocono Lake, PA
====================

"Dave Pitzer" wrote in message
...
I'm going up on my roof later this week to repair and paint my chimney.
I'd
like to take the opportunity to at least start an a.m. broadcast band
antenna (long wire??) using my chimney as the anchor for one end.

What kind of wire shoulds I buy?. Alumimum, copper? What gauge? What can I
use for insulators. What's a good way to ground it?

I have lots of trees in both the front and back yards for the "other" end.
Given this flexibility, about how long should the wire be. Would the wire
ideally be parallel with the (flat) terrain of the yard?

Directionality: Assuming most of the a.m. station I want to DX are in the
general direction of southeast of my house, should I run the wire SE - NW
or
NE-SW.

Downlead to receiver??? (receiver has external antenna input -- ground and
"hot".)

Is there a Web-site I could/should investigate or a more appropriate
news-group?

Dave -

There are many web sites on the Internet for Short Wave Listening (SWL) and
also at least a couple magazines - such as Bob Grove's Monitoring Times.
http://www.monitoringtimes.com

Universal Radio is a very good store that specializes in products for the
SWL as well
as the amateur radio hobbyist.
http://www.k7on.com/scan-swl/swl/

First, SAFETY is paramount in your antenna installation.
http://www.universal-radio.com/catal...t/safeswl.html

For antenna building I always suggest to beginners that they learn by
looking at
commercial products (especially the ones that work well)
http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/sw_ant/2205.html

http://www.alphadeltacom.com/pg7.htm

http://www.odxa.on.ca/beginnersguide/swhear.html

For AM broadcast (SWL) antennas, I have used everything from 20 gauge
speaker wire
to 14 gauge electrical wire (with choice of insulation color) used in
electrical conduit [not Romex]
http://www3.damien.edu/students/mski...e.html#Anchor5

A good ground rod is very useful for a proper installation.

Greg
w9gb

Dave:
I quickly scanned the responses to this point, and no one gave you the
correct guidance. In this present day environment, if you are interested in
BCB DXing, forget electric field (wire) antennas. Too much noise. Unless
you live in the middle of the desert, and are willing to forgo modern
conveniences, all an outside wire at BCB will give you is more noise. Start
looking into shielded loops. Lots of information on the 'net about them.
Up to about 3 MHz, they will outperform wire antennas hands down anywhere
except "clean" government receive sites. And, even there, shielded loops
are the antenna of choice for BCB intercept, and lower frequencies. See,
for example "Hermes Loops" on TCI's web page. I forget who else makes them,
but the government buys lots of them.

Now, if you are interested in Short Wave reception, that's another matter.
But pitfalls lurk there also.

--
Crazy George
Remove NO and SPAM from return address
"Dave Pitzer" wrote in message
...
I'm going up on my roof later this week to repair and paint my chimney.
I'd
like to take the opportunity to at least start an a.m. broadcast band
antenna (long wire??) using my chimney as the anchor for one end.

What kind of wire shoulds I buy?. Alumimum, copper? What gauge? What can I
use for insulators. What's a good way to ground it?

I have lots of trees in both the front and back yards for the "other" end.
Given this flexibility, about how long should the wire be. Would the wire
ideally be parallel with the (flat) terrain of the yard?

Directionality: Assuming most of the a.m. station I want to DX are in the
general direction of southeast of my house, should I run the wire SE - NW
or
NE-SW.

Downlead to receiver??? (receiver has external antenna input -- ground and
"hot".)

Is there a Web-site I could/should investigate or a more appropriate
news-group?

Many thanks,

Dave Pitzer
Pocono Lake, PA
====================

On Sat, 19 Jul 2003 23:14:42 GMT, "Dave Pitzer"
wrote:



Is there a Web-site I could/should investigate or a more appropriate
news-group?

Look over the stuff at the web site for the C. Crane company. Lots of
AM expertise.

Bob
k5qwwg


Many thanks,

Dave Pitzer
Pocono Lake, PA
====================

"Crazy George" wrote in message ...
Dave:
I quickly scanned the responses to this point, and no one gave you the
correct guidance. In this present day environment, if you are interested in
BCB DXing, forget electric field (wire) antennas. Too much noise.

I agree, but not really because of the noise. Because of the non
directional performance of most fairly short random wires for MW use.

Unless
you live in the middle of the desert, and are willing to forgo modern
conveniences, all an outside wire at BCB will give you is more noise. Start
looking into shielded loops. Lots of information on the 'net about them.
Up to about 3 MHz, they will outperform wire antennas hands down anywhere
except "clean" government receive sites. And, even there, shielded loops
are the antenna of choice for BCB intercept, and lower frequencies. See,
for example "Hermes Loops" on TCI's web page. I forget who else makes them,
but the government buys lots of them.

Now, if you are interested in Short Wave reception, that's another matter.
But pitfalls lurk there also.

Any kind of loop would be better than the wire. Doesn't really have to
be shielded, although that might reduce local noise a bit. I've tried
both, and could tell little difference. I use a 12 turn-16 inch loop
for MW, and local noise is very little problem at all. I have wire
antennas of various lengths and none are as good as the loop for MW.
The wires are too short to be directional on MW, and you get 4
stations on each freq. With the loop, you can null out noise or
unwanted stations. Adding a random wire is fairly useless for most
decent MW radios with a ferrite antenna inside. The s/n ratio will
rarely increase unless the ferrite antenna is really micky mouse. In
some case, the s/n ratio may decrease being the ferrite antenna is
directional and the random wire is not. MK