Shortwave antenna ideas

 

The type of antenna you’ll want to use for your shortwave receiver depends on the degree of interest you have in shortwave listening, on whether you are limited to an indoor or balcony antenna. If you cannot use an outdoor antenna, you can make yourself a whip antenna from telescoping radio antenna from your local Radio Shack store. A better antenna would be to throw a 10 to 20 foot piece of insulated wire out the window, secured to a pole or tree away from your window.

You could also place a length of wire in your attic to act as an antenna. An even better antenna would be a dipole antenna “cut” for the desired radio band of most interest. In order to construct your own dipole antenna, you can refer to the diagram depicted in Figure 8-5. Simply use the formula: 468 divided by the frequency in Megahertz for example. If you wanted to construct a dipole for 7.410 MHz, you would divide 468 by 7.410. The results would be 63.157 feet, so one-half of that number is 31.5 feet. Each leg of the dipole antenna

would then be 31.5 feet. If you do construct your own dipole antenna, you should keep the antenna away from metal objects and use insulated wire and be sure to keep away from all power lines. The lead-in wire for your dipole antenna to your new receiver can be a length of RG8X min-coaxial cable.