My first home made antenna

[wambulance]

Went to Lowe's with a buddy of mine. My buddy knows pretty much nothing about antennas, despite the fact that he makes wifi biquads and is a powerseller on ebay because of it. He knows how to make them, but doesn't understand really how they work, nor does he make any other antennas.

In any case, he suggested that I should make a simple antenna just for kicks. I already had the wire, and only needed $2.80 in additional supplies to make this;

I didn't expect much at all. First time I've done anything like this. The measurements, winding, everything was all arbitrary. The results? Well, I got a 10db gain when hooking it up to an internal antenna. Worked excellent on FM, and very good on HF at 5mhz-7mhz. I was very surprised, and that's with just having it leaning up against the wall inside a bedroom.

61" long, about 25 feet of 18 AWG insulated copper. Just wanted to share with you folks. I'm excited that I made something like this that actually worked. Thanks for looking.

 

[mackmobile43]

Went to Lowe's with a buddy of mine. My buddy knows pretty much nothing about antennas, despite the fact that he makes wifi biquads and is a powerseller on ebay because of it. He knows how to make them, but doesn't understand really how they work, nor does he make any other antennas.

In any case, he suggested that I should make a simple antenna just for kicks. I already had the wire, and only needed $2.80 in additional supplies to make this;

I didn't expect much at all. First time I've done anything like this. The measurements, winding, everything was all arbitrary. The results? Well, I got a 10db gain when hooking it up to an internal antenna. Worked excellent on FM, and very good on HF at 5mhz-7mhz. I was very surprised, and that's with just having it leaning up against the wall inside a bedroom.

61" long, about 25 feet of 18 AWG insulated copper. Just wanted to share with you folks. I'm excited that I made something like this that actually worked. Thanks for looking.

Well you should find lots of shortwave AM broadcast in that range and some 40 meter usb too.

 

[wambulance]

Thanks a lot, I'll try it out in those bands and check there.

Playing with it more and getting it by a window, I tuned to 3030khz which produced a local Hispanic shortwave station with the signal meter maxed out. I removed the clip and nothing but static! Awesome.

For testing, I'm using the internal antenna and I have it collapsed down just big enough to fit the alligator clip on.

Of course, I have a 300ft wire in the attic which this doesn't compare to, but this has other uses. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Moleculo]

Now you need to get a radio that you can actually talk on...then you can build all kinds of wire antennas that do lots of different things. It's even more fun when you can do the talking

 

[wambulance]

Oh for sure. Yeah at first I just wanted to listen. But after one day of having the radio, I felt the need to talk. In any case, I've posted a video of the antenna at work.
www.malignantpoodle.com/antennademo.wmv