Shortwave Antenna Suggestions

[johndoe]

So I just received a Ten Tec RX320d shortwave receiver I bought off ebay. It didn't come with an antenna, not even the crappy whip that normally comes with it. Any suggestions for an antenna setup for this thing? I'm in an RV park right now and am somewhat limited in what I can install, and am just starting out learning all this so my vocabulary is somewhat limited, so be gentle.

Oh, some guy at Radio Shack swore up and down the Grundig AN200 AM loop antenna would work for shortwave. I've had it scanning for a while now and I'm not getting much of anything though, apart from AM. So I'll probably be taking that back unless anyone thinks its worth keeping.

[gary in ohio]

Get a piece of wire as long as you can make it and use that for your antenna. Get it as long and as high as practical.

[johndoe]

Get a piece of wire as long as you can make it and use that for your antenna. Get it as long and as high as practical.

Thanks, that's sort of what I was thinking but wasn't sure. Before with my portable receiver, I was using a 20-30' wire about 6 feet off the ground to a tree outside, and clipping that to my portable's antenna. That's about as long and high as I can get here. Do I need to get an antenna to clip the wire to, or can I just solder it on to the RCA plug and plug it straight into the antenna jack?

[TacAir]

Get a piece of wire as long as you can make it and use that for your antenna. Get it as long and as high as practical.

Thanks, that's sort of what I was thinking but wasn't sure. Before with my portable receiver, I was using a 20-30' wire about 6 feet off the ground to a tree outside, and clipping that to my portable's antenna. That's about as long and high as I can get here. Do I need to get an antenna to clip the wire to, or can I just solder it on to the RCA plug and plug it straight into the antenna jack?

That should work - do you have a good ground inside where you will be operating?

If you can afford even an inexpensive tuner for the antenna, it will work better in bagging the weak stations.

[johndoe]

Get a piece of wire as long as you can make it and use that for your antenna. Get it as long and as high as practical.

Thanks, that's sort of what I was thinking but wasn't sure. Before with my portable receiver, I was using a 20-30' wire about 6 feet off the ground to a tree outside, and clipping that to my portable's antenna. That's about as long and high as I can get here. Do I need to get an antenna to clip the wire to, or can I just solder it on to the RCA plug and plug it straight into the antenna jack?

That should work - do you have a good ground inside where you will be operating?

If you can afford even an inexpensive tuner for the antenna, it will work better in bagging the weak stations.

No good ground inside really (though outside access to the frame is easy enough), unfortunately. An RV setup is really not ideal it seems. I basically have a wire running out my door and tied to a tree. Any suggestion on a sub-$150 tuner?

[TacAir]

MFJ-956
Price: $69.95

An inexpensive L tuner is more than enough for SW RX. This specific tuner is good lor VLF and AM band as well.

You could build your own
http://www.qsl.net/wb3gck/tuner.htm
The parts can be had and the tuner cobbled up from parts out of an old junked AM radio. Coil is wire wound on a 35mm film can.

Good way to learn more.

Have fun!

[johndoe]

Awesome, thanks. I think for now I'll just buy the tuner, since I'm so pressed for time. Dumb question though--I'm using a single wire for the antenna, and the RCA plug obviously has two (including the ground). Do I just connect the antenna wire to both, or just cut off the ground wire and connect it to the one?

[mattltm]

I use a homebrew longwire and a 9:1 UnUn with my Eton G3.

Fantastic bang for buck...

http://www.mattltm.co.uk/2010/04/03/building-a-longwire-antenna/

[Bunsen]

Awesome, thanks. I think for now I'll just buy the tuner, since I'm so pressed for time. Dumb question though--I'm using a single wire for the antenna, and the RCA plug obviously has two (including the ground). Do I just connect the antenna wire to both, or just cut off the ground wire and connect it to the one?

Connect the single wire to the center pin. You may get improved performance if you connect a second wire to the ground and string the two wires in more or less opposite directions, but the body of the radio and whatever it's connected to (like your electrical ground) can sorta play the same role as the ground-connected wire. Do try to get the wire(s) as high as you can -- if the wire isn't too heavy, a string tied around a rock or something tossed into the upper branches of that tree might help.

If routing the second wire is a problem, it's okay to run the two wires parallel to each other for a while (using zipcord or speaker wire, for example, you can leave the two wires stuck together for this). The length where they're parallel won't contribute to reception, but it may allow you to run both of them out the same window, door, or what have you.

[TacAir]

Awesome, thanks. I think for now I'll just buy the tuner, since I'm so pressed for time. Dumb question though--I'm using a single wire for the antenna, and the RCA plug obviously has two (including the ground). Do I just connect the antenna wire to both, or just cut off the ground wire and connect it to the one?

Rather than a RCA plug, just a 'banana' plug.



Your local Rat Shack or other electornics outlet should have these for a reasonable price. One wire is soldered to the plug, this goes to the center of the radio "ANT" port/connector.

You could go all high tech and use an adpater set


PL-259 to BNC female adapter

than add


to attach the wires. This setup will allow you to 'ground' the tuner.

Or just use this

This is a PL-259 to RCA adapater.

The adapter goes into the tuner to the port/connector labled "ANT", the RCA into the adapter.


The tuner is attached to the radio via a PL-259 cable, like this

Tuner port/connector labled "OUTPUT" to the radio port/connector labled "ANT"



SWL is a fun hobby and good way to stay on top of your language skill set.

Have fun!

[Bunsen]

good ideas for connecting to an SO-239 jack

The receiver in question has an RCA jack for the external antenna, not an SO-239. Connecting to a tuner would probably require an adapter, though, since I generally see those with SO-239 connectors.

[johndoe]

Correct, it's an RCA. Now until I get the tuner in I decided to rig up just the single wire, but now I'm stumped. Here's what's going on.

On my RX320D with the AN200 loop antenna plugged in, I can *just* barely hear 9725 khz out of Lima Peru (using this frequency as an example). I mean, just barely. I plug in my random wire, I hear nothing on 9725. I unplug the random wire antenna and hold the RCA plug up to the built in antenna on my Grundig G3 portable, I get 9725 very clearly. I pull the RCA off the Grundig's antenna, 9725 becomes muddled with static, but I can still barely hear it.

So, this seems to indicate to my novice mind that the antenna is working somewhat, at least on the G3. The fact that I can pull in 9725 on the RX320D with the AN200 loop seems to indicate to me the RX320D is working, at least somewhat--though not nearly as well as my "cheaper" and supposedly less good G3. Odd, since I would think the expensive and very highly reviewed RX320D would get much better reception.

So, I can conclude one of two things (and tell me if I'm offbase here). First, the RX320D is screwed up somehow. In the alternative, the RX320D is somehow more finicky for some reason and needs something more precise in the realm of antennas that the G3 doesn't. This seems reasonable (again, to my novice mind), but it also seems somewhat backwards, given that one would think the cheaper portable would require more finesse to get good reception.

So, any thoughts on this?

P.S. Nobody ever told me this radio stuff would be so hard.

[TacAir]

In looking around the web (I don't have a -320) the built-in whip (and the small in-line amp) are disconnected when the RCA jack is inserted.

It would seem that if the barrel (center conductor) of the RCA is not long enough, it will not bypass the installed whip when the external antenna is attached. Thus any benifit of the external ant is lost. I could be off on this one.

The other question is how far is your PC/laptop from the rigs antenna? Computers generate plenty of RF noise and hash - the closer they are to the rig or antenna, the more the RFI or hash will impact on the radios ability to 'hear' a station.

There is a Yahoo group for the rig as well. Are you currently a member? I have found Yahoo group (just like the old SIGs) are a good source of information and sugestion on using a specific piece of equipment.

[johndoe]

In looking around the web (I don't have a -320) the built-in whip (and the small in-line amp) are disconnected when the RCA jack is inserted.

It would seem that if the barrel (center conductor) of the RCA is not long enough, it will not bypass the installed whip when the external antenna is attached. Thus any benifit of the external ant is lost. I could be off on this one.

The other question is how far is your PC/laptop from the rigs antenna? Computers generate plenty of RF noise and hash - the closer they are to the rig or antenna, the more the RFI or hash will impact on the radios ability to 'hear' a station.

There is a Yahoo group for the rig as well. Are you currently a member? I have found Yahoo group (just like the old SIGs) are a good source of information and sugestion on using a specific piece of equipment.

Good idea on the yahoo groups...I'll join right now and see what I can find. The laptop is 6 feet away (as far as the connecting cable will reach). But that would seem like it would also impact the ability of the AN200 antenna to "hear" the station too, and it gets better when I switch to the AN200, though it certainly isn't "good."

Re: the whip, I don't have an external whip on the RX320D right now, so I assume it's possible the RCA on the external jack may not be connecting. But since I know the AN200 cable is getting "some" signal, I just disconnected the miniplug out of the antenna and attached it to the longwire to see if that helped. That should rule out the plug being an issue I would think, but that still isn't working.

In playing around with stuff in the meantime, I've pulled off the RCA plug and soldered on an alligator clip to bounce around between the various connections. Then I went out and got really, really creative with running my longwire through the RV park and managed to get a full 90 foot run in a zigzag random pattern (god help me if my neighbor decides to drive anywhere tonight since his truck is hemmed in right this second ). The upside is this new run, when connected to my portable, has really given me some great reception and I'm able to pick up Radio Havana almost perfectly, where usually I get a lot of static and fade out. The downside is that it made no difference at all on the RX320D.

Sigh.

[TacAir]

I wish I could offer more help, but at this point, I would want to see the radio itself.

Do you know of any hams in the area? You may be able to find someone that can at least offer a different antenna for testing.

Good luck.

[johndoe]

Thanks, all of you. You've been a really amazing source of information and help for this guy just learning about amateur radio!

[iridium]

Google around for a cheap G5RV, its not only a great ham antenna but a VERY good shortwave listening antenna as well. Its really just wire and cable.. but a very good design. Its also pretty cheap

I use mine here for Ham radio as well as just tuning around the bands. Works great.

[Boyscoutdreams]

I've been using a G5RV lite for about 6 months. The other day I was not liking the reception on it. The SWR was OK, but the signals just seemed weak. I switched back to my Antron 99 and was very impressed with it's ability to receive on many of the ham bands. Which makes me wonder, now I have to drop my G5RV and see if there is any damage...... even though the SWR was very acceptable. Any horizontal dipole has the null sides off the ends and I am hoping that was the issue the other night.,,, The foreign AM stations came booming in on the Antron and I was very impressed.

[CitizenZ]

For a reciever I would like to have recieve type antenna, like a beverage or other low noise recieving antenna. No good for transmitting, but much better at listening.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverage_antenna

Frequently you can get better performance (than a RS antenna) by just laying a long peice of wire right on the ground. Longer the better. Wrapping the perimiter of your lot works great too.

[Boyscoutdreams]

The biggest problem with wrapping a long wire around a lot line is when power lines run the whole length of the lot,,,, on the longest side of a diamond shaped lot. I've seen a bunch of the wire antennas and will set one up for receive only one of these days,,, but not till I have something out in the country to stretch it in.

John

[CitizenZ]

No. Do not "wrap around the lot line" if you've got power lines there.
We're still talking about the same length of wire. If all you can stretch is 20', then it can be optimized for receive and minimize noise; tricks that are not ideal for transceive. Whatever the length. Obviously as far from noise sources as possible. Depending on your noise issues you may find that lowering the heigth (evne laying it on the ground) or using a recieve antenna type design or grounding solution (beverage) can increase signal or at least decrease noise. With urban areas noise is a much bigger problem than signal strength. So these designs become more important in urban areas. If you've got a rural lot and can hang a 200' wire 150' in the air, with no noise issues; Great! Most of us must deal with noise and less than ideal lots.

You can make that length of wire longer by putting in some turns and using longer stretches of yard. Usually just one or two sides, or from the house to a point then 1 or two turns. Even zig zags can be used to increase length. Experiment and read up on antenna design for receive.

[crypto]

I'm partial to this antenna for shortwave receiving:

http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/sw_ant/3184.html