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Author Topic: Antenna 4 bedroom setup  (Read 1881 times)

Offline Jason

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Antenna 4 bedroom setup
« on: June 09, 2018, 1906 UTC »
I'm running my ICOM7200 in the bedroom, I'm needing a better antenna for greater RX, in hopes of rigging antenna in room for RX ONLY ?
Icom_7200 
Icom_2300H
Xiegu X5105
AOR_8200  
Tripp Lite DC converter 13.8v 3/5a 
RTL SDR_SDR Console V3. 
Baofeng_UV5RQ-Retech whip
Radio Shack_PRO 404 scanner
Harris_152A V/U 10W clone
Antenna : Indoor pole mounted active loop
Antenna : Avantec_2041-3 Satcom antenna

Offline Josh

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Re: Antenna 4 bedroom setup
« Reply #1 on: June 09, 2018, 2018 UTC »
Run a few loops of wire around the window frame. If fed at a corner you get vertical polarisation, if fed at a middle of top or bottom section you get horizontal. I used a IC703 (10w qrp rig) to make stateside ssb contacts using the window loop antenna on 40m often. Worked fine for wideband hf rx but a preselector/antenna tuner would help wring more rf out of the antenna.
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Offline ThElectriCat

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Re: Antenna 4 bedroom setup
« Reply #2 on: June 11, 2018, 1646 UTC »
I would try a tabletop magnetic loop, I ran a setup like this in southern california for several years. The BIG advantage of RX only is that you can use high Q, components without needing to worry about heating or loss too much, the big disadvantage is that a magnetic loop that works well for, say,10 to 30 Mhz, wont do well below that. If having 2 loops is an acceptable solution, go for it.
Some people build tabletop loop tuner boxes that do this, with quick change loops and ferrite loopsticks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7PZpjEUKEk
unfortunately, I do not speak german, but even the demo itself shows this tabletop antenna. Building something like this is a good path to acceptable indoor reception. Of course, companies like AOR and Wellbrook make commercial antennas like this if one is willing to spend the money.
PS. Joshs suggestion of wire around the window also works quite well, and is far easier to implement, I have done this as well, but I found I prefered the selectivity of a tuned device.
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Offline moof

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Re: Antenna 4 bedroom setup
« Reply #3 on: June 12, 2018, 2244 UTC »
If you have $400 burning a hole in your pocket get a Wellbrook loop.  I had great results way back with my R8 just running a chunk of very thin wire up the wall and around 3/4 of the ceiling corners.  It always was quite good as long as you had some chunk of wire at least 20 feet long even on the first floor ceiling.

Offline Josh

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Re: Antenna 4 bedroom setup
« Reply #4 on: June 13, 2018, 1717 UTC »
"PS. Joshs suggestion of wire around the window also works quite well, and is far easier to implement, I have done this as well, but I found I prefered the selectivity of a tuned device."

The loop I used was a coax fed true loop, and a transmatch was always used, either an external one for higher powered rigs or the internal one in the IC703 qrp rig. The transmatch greatly increases selectivity at the antenna port. I had a lot of ferrite beads on that coax to keep rf off the coax.

For tx use, such a loop is fine on ssb voice mode as the average power is low, keeping the wire from heating up due to the losses from amps of rf flowing in it, for rx use you can use a string wetted with salt water as the loop. If you do digimodes like jt and so on, you have to reduce power to 5w or so to keep the wire loop from  heating up. I used silver wire with a teflon coating for the loop. A copper tube or pipe would have been better for tx as the losses are reduced the thicker the conductor.
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Offline ThaDood

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Re: Antenna 4 bedroom setup
« Reply #5 on: June 13, 2018, 1931 UTC »
A decade ago, in my last APT, I put up an 11M dipole in a "V" with an LDG 100Pro tuner. That's actually worked well on CB, then on 10M SSB and 29.600MHz Simplex. It heard fairly well down to 20M. It did fair to listen to the strong 75M and 40M stations, but not great, as expected.
I was asked, yet another weird question, of how I would like to be buried, when I finally bite the big one. The answer was actually pretty easy. Face-down, like a certain historical figure in the late 1980's, (I will not mention who, but some of you will get it, and that's enough.) Why??? It would be a burial that will satisfy everyone: (1) My enemies will say that it will show me where to go. (2) On the same point, I can have my enemies kiss my butt. (3) It will temporarily give someone a place to park a bicycle. See??? A WIN / WIN for everyone.

Offline SevenTrees'

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Re: Antenna 4 bedroom setup
« Reply #6 on: June 15, 2018, 2250 UTC »
it would work really well if you can feed some wire through a window, so antenna is outside.
You can use a simple piece of wire.
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