musichal
poet emeritus
We be awful slow. Tonight I have the antenna hooked up to the Sony XDR-F1HD tuner on the main rig. Wow. I was getting only three adequately quiet stations - and even they had noise - but now I'm hearing lots of clean locals. Not sure how many yet, but will have to add to presets, most likely. Right now, in deference to my hard-working wife, we're listening to country - which I also enjoy - which is her favorite. The hits from the 70s and 80s, her era.
Twenty-five feet of 3/8" soft copper tubing is cheap - ten bucks to the door. I've used five feet. I need another for the bedroom. Have enough tubing for three more beyond that. Sure is nice to spend so little for such an improvement. The vertical alignment works well in my situation.
28.7" Long, 3/8" copper tubing x 2 pieces
12" dowel to fit inside
RG59 or RG6 cable, length as needed (20' in my case)
soldering tools and supplies - or, if that is a no - small screw-type hose clamps
tube-cutter and other common tools, knives, strippers, etc.
Cut the tubing to 28 & 3/4" 'cause that's close enough for a mid-dial tuning. Shortening the element by an inch would change it from 98 Mhz to about 101 Mhz. Lengthen by an inch tunes it from the 98 center to about 94 Mhz. Longer then, changes to lower on the dial. Shorter goes higher up the dial. (Most of you guys are laughing at that, but not all of us have that firmly implanted in our minds.)
Slide one element over one end of the dowel, the other element onto the other end, leaving about a 2.5" gap between the elements. Use whatever method is handiest to fit them snugly, whether glue, or tape, or clamps, or finding perfect dowels (ha!). The two ends close together on the dowel is where you attach your cable.
Do yourself a favor and order some good quad-shield 75-ohm coax cable. The cheapest cable can sometimes offer little more than the film foil with maybe a few strands of aluminum. Quad-shield cable has some thick stranded ground wire aluminum braid that is much easier to work with than the cheap stuff for attaching to feedpoints
No balun required. Order a few snap-on ferrite chokes when you order the tubing and cable - they are inexpensive and useful.
This is for inside use, but will work even better outside, though you'd need to beef up the dowel, and attach the feeder points with weather in mind.
Works well. Read all I Like Sound's posts in this thread for more detail, and several other contributors, too. It's an easy, quick (well, not so much for me) and satisfying little project.
Thanks to all who made this a better thread.
Twenty-five feet of 3/8" soft copper tubing is cheap - ten bucks to the door. I've used five feet. I need another for the bedroom. Have enough tubing for three more beyond that. Sure is nice to spend so little for such an improvement. The vertical alignment works well in my situation.
28.7" Long, 3/8" copper tubing x 2 pieces
12" dowel to fit inside
RG59 or RG6 cable, length as needed (20' in my case)
soldering tools and supplies - or, if that is a no - small screw-type hose clamps
tube-cutter and other common tools, knives, strippers, etc.
Cut the tubing to 28 & 3/4" 'cause that's close enough for a mid-dial tuning. Shortening the element by an inch would change it from 98 Mhz to about 101 Mhz. Lengthen by an inch tunes it from the 98 center to about 94 Mhz. Longer then, changes to lower on the dial. Shorter goes higher up the dial. (Most of you guys are laughing at that, but not all of us have that firmly implanted in our minds.)
Slide one element over one end of the dowel, the other element onto the other end, leaving about a 2.5" gap between the elements. Use whatever method is handiest to fit them snugly, whether glue, or tape, or clamps, or finding perfect dowels (ha!). The two ends close together on the dowel is where you attach your cable.
Do yourself a favor and order some good quad-shield 75-ohm coax cable. The cheapest cable can sometimes offer little more than the film foil with maybe a few strands of aluminum. Quad-shield cable has some thick stranded ground wire aluminum braid that is much easier to work with than the cheap stuff for attaching to feedpoints
No balun required. Order a few snap-on ferrite chokes when you order the tubing and cable - they are inexpensive and useful.
This is for inside use, but will work even better outside, though you'd need to beef up the dowel, and attach the feeder points with weather in mind.
Works well. Read all I Like Sound's posts in this thread for more detail, and several other contributors, too. It's an easy, quick (well, not so much for me) and satisfying little project.
Thanks to all who made this a better thread.
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