Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Hobbies, Crafts, & Houses > Achtung! Its the one and only Shortwave Radio Uberthread!
 
  • Locked thread
InediblePenguin
Sep 27, 2004

I'm strong. And a giant penguin. Please don't eat me. No, really. Don't try.

Dog Case posted:

Anything more than the built in antenna will be an improvement. A length of wire attached to the antenna and strung around the window frame works. I imagine even just a couple feet hanging out the window would help quite a bit.
I unwrapped the wire from one of those black plastic AM loop antennas that come with a lot of stereo receivers and put it out my kitchen window. The wire is small enough to fit through the screen and close the window on, and it works surprisingly well.
You don't even have to do anything fancy to attach the wire to the radio. Just wrapping it around the antenna a bunch of times works.
We have a black plastic AM loop, two Slinkies, and about 75 feet of assorted wire (stereo and clothesline) looped back and forth in a sort of net pattern across the ceiling of our radio room. It's pretty ghetto, but hey, we can listen to the BBC!

* # ¿ Jun 8, 2007 19:08
  • Quote
Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 11, 2024 08:31
  • Quote
InediblePenguin
Sep 27, 2004

I'm strong. And a giant penguin. Please don't eat me. No, really. Don't try.

AstroZamboni posted:

Can you knock out an MS Paint blueprint for this, or some sort of instructions for building one? It sounds like a frinktabulous fabtraption!

How are your results, typically? Pretty clean reception?



It's hard to tell without a real basis for comparison - the ghetto-rigging is the only sort of antenna we've ever used - but it's certainly clearer than the built-in antenna alone, and I find it suffices pretty well for a rig that cost under $20 altogether including the radio (an estate sale find).

* # ¿ Jun 9, 2007 21:08
  • Quote
InediblePenguin
Sep 27, 2004

I'm strong. And a giant penguin. Please don't eat me. No, really. Don't try.

AstroZamboni posted:

What type of wire do you use? Hookup wire? Speaker wire?

And do you just have the wire in contact with slinkies hanging from the ceiling or something?

I have a soom with hooks from the ceiling like this, and I would like to build one of these fabtraptions.
The stereo wire is I think speaker wire. (Edit because I misunderstood your question. Sorry.)

The slinkies used to be placed with one stretched between two cuphooks, in contact with the wires, and the other just hanging from the ceiling, but they've gone missing.

* # ¿ Jun 9, 2007 23:41
  • Quote
  • Locked thread
The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Hobbies, Crafts, & Houses > Achtung! Its the one and only Shortwave Radio Uberthread!