| Author |
Message |
    
Bluegrass
Intermediate Member
Username: Bluegrass
Post Number: 135
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 8:40 am: | 
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I got great performance from taking a peice of copper wire and attaching one end to the antenna screw on the back of my sw radio and attaching the other end to a screw on an air duct register in my radio room turning the house's entire air duct system in to a shortwave reciving antenna.If you are in to SWL'ing then you'll love this.IT REALLY WORKS!!! |
Bruce
Senior Member
Username: Bruce
Post Number: 2202
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 10:00 am: |
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bluegrass YES IT DOES ......
However .... Some older Short Wave radios Tube types called AC/DC or " All american 5's " would have real problema with that ant.
You can use a random lengh antenna tuner and get realy good results ...... MFJ makes them. |
Mikefromms
Intermediate Member
Username: Mikefromms
Post Number: 442
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 11:46 am: |
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That's very creative. I wonder if I could use a tuner and tranmit on the air duct system....could you imagine the rf flowing through the house? Thanks for sharing. S.W. is fun to listen to.
mikefromms |
Bluegrass
Intermediate Member
Username: Bluegrass
Post Number: 138
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, February 12, 2005 - 4:54 am: |
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The radio i use is an old GE Jetstreme transister radio from the early 60's.If you have a modern radio this will work fine. |
Bruce
Senior Member
Username: Bruce
Post Number: 2207
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, February 12, 2005 - 4:00 pm: |
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Bluegrass be VERY CAREFUL of the old haillcrafter ( like that s-38 ) national and other 5 or 6 tube radios. If it DOES NOT HAVE A POWER TRANSFORMER and only a audio output one is is a AC/DC chassies and is 120 volts HOT! You hook it to your antenna and you have a 50% change your going to short your wall outlet to GROUND!
These are great cheep radios but can KILL YOU !
YES .... I did myself get knocked on my butt remember when they were built the power cords had no polatry and even if one did it's worn down enough that that may not work if the hot side of 120 is hooked to the radio chassies ....... KAtty bar the door !!!!!
There are MANY of these radios still out there most are like i said 4 band 5 or 6 tube made in the 40's - 60's and still sought after by collectors. |
Racer X (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, February 12, 2005 - 6:44 pm: |
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I've read about using the cable from your cable TV system as a shortwave antenna, but with all the digital services that cable TV systems have today I would imagine that bandwidth is already used for something. Still, it couldn't hurt to try it and see if it works, and if there are data services on those frequencies you can try the shield as an antenna.
I've also read about using telephone lines as an AM broadcast and shortwave antenna, but that's a tricky process and involves using a filter circuit to protect the radio from the ringer or other signals on the telephone line. If you live in an older neighborhood you probably have a decent amount of copper between you and the local switching office to act as the antenna. But if you live in a newer neighborhood you may only have a few feet of copper until it's switched over to fiberoptic lines.
If your wiring is underground then it probably won't work well as an antenna. |
Bluegrass
Intermediate Member
Username: Bluegrass
Post Number: 143
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 15, 2005 - 4:28 am: |
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i run my radio on batteries.i'm not going to try using telephone lines as antennas i'm not in to swl'ing that much. |
Hotwire
Member
Username: Hotwire
Post Number: 71
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 15, 2005 - 10:29 am: |
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A while back I remember a guy who lived real close to a railroad. He grounded his antenna to one of the rails. Hid the heavy gauge wire by burying it of course. He finally was caught after some railroad upgrades were made. The rumor was that he used cb and got out great. I was to little to know for sure. Back in the good ol 70's. |
Bluegrass
Intermediate Member
Username: Bluegrass
Post Number: 148
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Monday, February 21, 2005 - 8:10 am: |
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grounding your antenna to thousnds of miles of rail, HOLY COW!!! |
Marconi
Intermediate Member
Username: Marconi
Post Number: 384
Registered: 11-2001
| | Posted on Monday, February 21, 2005 - 8:39 am: |
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Hey boys its getin' deep around here. Rail lines are so full of iron that they are hardly conductive. Try OHM'n one out sometimes. |
Tech833
Member
Username: Tech833
Post Number: 63
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 12:19 pm: |
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Bruce,
The only way an AA5 or a Halli S-38 is going to have 120 VAC on the antenna lead is if there is something horribly wrong in the radio. Even the ground is capacitively coupled in an S-38. I have restored dozens of them. I will gladly email the schematics for the whole S-38, S-38A, S-38B, S-38C, S-38D, S-38DE series to you if you like. |
Bruce
Senior Member
Username: Bruce
Post Number: 2255
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 2:34 pm: |
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833
I UNDERSTAND AND IN GENERAL YOUR RIGHT ....
Now one of the S38's i had someone had somehow lost or removed the cap and connected the plug to the chassies DIRECTLY. The radio was HOT cap or not ..... not that i worried much about it since all AC/DC radios i have had here were on a 120/120 transformer. Also in NEW YORK the wireing in the old houses had NO SAEFTY GROUND ( 2 pin unpolarized plugs ) and if the chassies side of the line cord was connected to the hot side of the 120 line ( a 50/50 chance ) all you had was the isolation cap between the chassies and hot 120.
The radio ground was the most dangerous since you now connected your 120 hot to EARTH GROUND ..... NOTE Fuses dont like this.
TRUE someone had to have played with things to cause this problem but when posting on these radios i will always post on the side of SAEFTY.
Up untill a few years ago i had the schmatics but got rid of my last 5 tuber in the mid 90's and just didn't see a reason to worry about keeping them. |
