I grew up on the AM radio's 2nd WW news.( I was born in 1937). I still prefer AM radio to most of the other news outlets. Thank you for this very effective, cheap, and easy way, of gaining much better strength and clarity from my am radios. I live in a very remote area of the Mojave Desert in Southern California, and like to listen to talk radio from Los Angeles and San Francisco at night, before going to sleep. Los Angeles is about 180 miles SW of my home's location, and San Francisco is hundreds of miles to the NW of me. I easily made the antennae you explained in this video blog, and it works fantastically to triple the clarity of my nighttime broadcasts... Thank you again for your time, skill, and generosity, in making all your knowledge so available to those of us open and thankful for it, and you, on fabulous You Tube!
I made this for my clockradio in the bedroom. I lead the wires outside , the antennawire fixed across the entire length of the yard fence, for the ground wire i hammered an old metal tentpole into the ground and attached the wire using an automotive hoseclamp that i had in my stash. The coil fits over the casing of the clockradio. I'm in the south of the Netherlands and at night i was able to pick up AM stations from as dag as Germany, UK and Scotland, Italy, Spain and Romania! Works beyond expected!
@@markbailey1423 I've already tried and worked perfectly with about 9 turns. You put the coil close to and on the part of the radio where is the AM circuit inside. (I mean the ferrite rod antenna)
Good project. Inductive coupling off a longwire. Very cool. And yes, the red wire and black wires obviously were connected. Black longwire to end of red wire, red wire coiled up to be set near the radio -- with the other end coming off the coil going to the ground rod. Very cool and inexpensive set up. And it works.
Thanks for clarifying that. I had thought that the red wire was looped 7 turns and then it was grounded on his lawn and that's it. Now I see how that black wire was used in this set-up. Works great from what I have read in the comments.
Don't ever brow beat AM radio! The very fact they can run at less than full power can be a blessing. A couple of years back we had a hurricane come directly over the Columbus, Georgia area. Needless to say all the radio stations in town where down to lack of power save one. They had the sense to invest in a backup generator. They were running at reduced power off a 5000 watt generator in the parking lot and even had ham radio volunteers at the station keeping in touch with first responders at city hall.
wow - couldn't believe it when 830 WEEU in Reading came on !! my favorite station and the reason I was watching this video to find a better way to improve the reception !!
Im studying mechatronics engineering at Tanzania and now im planning to graduate with wireless power and signal transmission using tesla coil. I acually made huge step but in broadcast the sound was challenge. So i hope this will work for good 😊😊. Thank you sir!
In the 1990’s I purchased my very first short wave from a catalog. Upon arrival I was bummed out as it turned out to be a pocket radio , well I decided to try it out anyway and ended up picking up a station from Macau, clear as of it was next door. I will try your method as I love hearing radio stations from different places. Thank you very much.
Hi Tom! When I was younger, and there were a bunch of Radio/Electronics magazines available, a little inexpensive gem like this would usually be found in a column called something like "Hints and Kinks for Radio Fans". I've heard that this method also works well for shortwave portables that lack an antenna jack. Just roll a solenoid coil a little wider than the telescopic antenna, maybe 20 turns or so, slip it over the bottom section of the telescopic antenna, and you're good to go. Now...if we could just do something about the propagation, and the quality of programming. God I miss Jean Shepherd...Excelsior! and 73, Karl
Hola, yo personalmente uso un tubo de chimenea metálica de 13 metros de largo y funciona muy bien para sintonizar a.m sw1 sw2 un abrazo saludos desde Chile
Nice build... simple and cheap. As you said we are never happy with the antennas we have. my backyard is full of antennas and still I am always looking for a "Better Antenna"... thanks for sharing and 73 Brian
Some construction details from Radiodog "Think of the antenna this way: 1. Take a piece of wire of decent length, I'd say at least 70 feet or so. 2. String one end of the wire to a support as high as you possibly can. (For this demonstration, I simply tied the wire around the trampoline post, as high as I could reach.) Affix the wire so that there is at least 50+ feet in the air, in the clear. 3. Attach the other end of the wire to some sort of earth ground. (I tried it with a piece of junk metal tapped 12" into the ground and it worked fine.) There should be a good bit of wire left slack; you'll need it for Step 4. 4. At the radio location (here: my patio table), make a simple winding (or series of loops). I did 7 loops around the widest part of my hand and fashioned it into a nice round loop, held with tape."
One way to get your long wire up very very high safely is to simply to connect something to it you can toss up very high. A simple rod & reel comes to mind. Toss the line up, cut it and use the line to drag the line up. Do the very same for the other end drag it up. Tie the ends of the fishing lines to the two trees and viola you have it. Need to pull it down? Simply cut the fishing lines.
Thank you VERY MUCH! for the video. Amazing results! Really easy and cheap. The best results I have seen so far from AM antennas, even better than any expensive antenna.
I made one today, I had some very long lengths of 12awg wire that was not being used for anything from an old well pump. Wire nutted two together to make it around 100' long. I have another to go even longer, might do that for 150'. It works well. I am using a ccradio 2e which already has very good am reception, this homemade antenna made it a lot better. Some channels like 50% better, sometimes the difference can be between a channel being barely understandable to never missing a single word. My grounding rod is just a piece of rebar, pounded it about one foot into the ground. It was old an rusty, used an angle grinder to remove rust off a portion for good contact. Another thing to note, my coil is inside a shed, routed the wires outside the shed, grounding rod is next to the shed door and the antenna runs up a hill into some woods.
Pour salt water on your ground rod location....a good soaking. Plus you can buy a 4 ft ground rod too. My metal camper roof structure is anchored to the ground so I just ran hookup wire to a bolt on it outside my camper window. Then ran a 100 ft length from a window to a tree on the end of my camper away from the electric meter. Before this it was impossible to get a signal on AM or shortwave in my camper. I connect this with a mono audio cable to my AN-200 AM Loop Antenna for normal radios and directly to my Tecsun PL-330. I also discovered that it even works to boost AM with any shortwave receiver with an antenna input. But the PL-330 can be set for external AM antennas.
@@baneverything5580 I remember once being told you can (and should) urinate on an antenna. I wasn't sure if I was just being joked with. What's the purpose of this (or the salt water)?
@@toonz9971 The salt water in the soil around the earth ground helps it make better electrical contact since salt is conductive. Some soils may not contain many conductive minerals or the ground rod may not be deep enough and in a pinch the salt water (keep the soil around the ground wet) may help the antenna/ground system function better.
@@toonz9971 And speaking of conductive soils and salt, most single frequency metal detectors are useless on a saltwater beach in the wet sand. They will beep (or false) over the wet salt water and minerals when no metal of gold ring is really there. But now Minelab, the company who made the very expensive metal detectors always seen being used on beaches, has released the Minelab Vanquish 340, 440, and 540. With these inexpensive multi frequency machines regular people can now hunt for gold rings on the beaches and find deep silver coins on land. The Vanquish 340 is only 200 bucks.
Great video! Thanks a lot. I tested Your patent because before I made simple random wire (~20m) antenna with grounding for my Sudety R-208 receiver. It works very good. On my Panasonic RF-3500 portable RX with Your tip I'm listening now some stations from Romania (Actualitati 1152 kHz and others, Czech Republic (CRo Plus, Dvojka, Dechovka), Moldova (Vesti FM 1413 kHz, Moldova Actualitati 1494 kHz), Hungary (MR1 Kossuth 540 kHz, Danko Radio 1251 kHz, MR4 1188kHz) - in Poland at 12 30 UTC (it's daytime!). Unfortunately, I have some local interferences which make reception difficult. Really useful tip!
This is most helpful for sets that don't have autonomous AM antenna terminals. In the house I make do with "ultimate AM antenna" plans that were ages ago included with Carver tuners. The "spread" of a long wire like this isn't there, but it's good enough for my auto-off bedtime radio. I often pull in CFZM 740, almost 600 miles away.
Yeah Just imagine blowing someone’s mind. You’re in Sacramento California and you’re picking up the live broadcast of “The Grand Old Opry. They hear Station identifier of WSM Nashville Tennessee and then go say what?
The most recent question/comment I see was from 3 months ago, so I'll venture a question regarding the wire hook up. You have the black wire running from your trampoline to the patio umbrella, but not physically attached to the radio in anyway? And the red wire with the loop is your ground wire physically attached to the copper ground pole in the earth, with your 7 or 8 wire turns, but not physically attached the radio, other than brought up close to the external body of the radio, which does seem to work. So the radio is inducting a signal from the red wire. I have an antique radio that has spring activated connections for an antenna, a ground, a short distance/local station connector and a long distance connector. I have recently finished a restoration on this Atwater-Kent, Model 55. As part of the restoration I had the tubes tested and 2 needed to be replaced. Upon turning on the unit, all the tubes have significant glow and I get some static through the speaker. I thought it was worth trying a cheapo AM loop antenna ( 2 wires, black and white) as an experiment. I don't think the antenna is suitable for a great distance. For a brief moment, 2 or 3 seconds maybe, I heard a voice, somewhere near the bottom end of the band, But that was it; I tried switching the black and white wire which made no difference. Would you think the antenna is too short/small or needs to be outside ? Looking for a suggestion. Otherwise all I'm getting is a small/weak amount of static across the band.
One other RUclips Video has a long wire running between two glass Insulators down the length of his roof top. He’s got the large loop inside his basement, and Grounded off to a copper water pipe. Good idea because he said that this was the only viable alternative since he only lived on a 1/4 acre lot. One other way is to use one of those clothing lines in the shape of a Carasol. You know one of those clothes lines that is in the shape of a rounded dome. Wrap up your long wire around it from top to bottom using zip ties with as many wraps as you can. This won’t bring in as many distant stations but it will being in stations from all around you in all directions.
I do something similar but for FM radio. I've got a portable that has a jack for an external FM antenna. I just connect a simple wire that has a 1/4 inch plug on both ends. Hang one end of the wire near the top of the door with clips or tape and I've got nearly three times the stations coming in. Not bad for a wire only five or six feet long. The only problem is the wire needs to stay vertical. If I used a wire as long as you use hanging from the top of the house or a nearby tree top I could be picking up Cuba.
I want to ask...someone makes an antenna like that...and you put it on the am band.! Can an antenna like that also be used for the SW band...? Please explain because I'm still a layman
I like. mine is 4 turns of #24 wire in a heat shrink shield about one foot in length.after makeing 4 passes with #24 wire put one end on a ground the other on 20' of number 18 gage stranded wire as the in put/ANTENNA. Drape loop on radio . Just like yours. Mine will cover 160 to 20 meters fine condition.
A good stopgap! BUT, I'll be REALLY impressed if you take your hand off of it and then compare the "before and after". Those of us above a certain age remember that trick with Rabbit Ears, lol...
It works without touching the coil. I did something similar with two very long wires as a dipole, no ground, and a 100 turn coil of 24 AWG magnet wire on a paper towel tube.
@@DXPedro Oh, I know it works, and I thank you for inspiring me to take a run at it. I've done it for every radio and component tuner in my house (and there are a lot of them). I used a 5/8"x6" Stainless bolt and it works really well. I was just having a little fun with your testing parameters. As long as fingers (or anything that's magnetic) is close to the coil, you're giving a little helping hand (okay, fingers) to the results. The same thing happens with SW boosters like those sold by MFJ. If you want to have some real fun you can try cascading those two together (i.e., with a tunable antenna), and then you can get even more interesting results, especially with selectivity. My big problem with all OTA formats now is there being less than ever to actually listen to...I still DX for both FM and AM, but except for a little bit of morning weekend NPR and a couple of overnight skip AM stations playing Jazz, there's not much to hear OTA anymore. It's very geographically eccentric, and I'm a retired Classical/Jazz Musician and you can only listen to so much Miles (as much as I like him) or Pachelbel's greatest hit (and it makes money when playing weddings) and not get tired of the lack of actual diversity of programming out there these days...off soapbox, Lol... thanks again...
@@Ricktpt1 on that regard, I just catch Austrian Radio International that only broadcasts 90min a day with great great classical selection. sorry to plug it like this, but feel free to check it on my channel. I can still catch plenty AM here in portugal, mostly north africa and spain, but it'snot uncommon for me o catch england or italy as well. have a great week.
I totally CAN'T UNDESTAND THIS! 😐 You use a long copper pipe as the literal antenna, BUT You TOTALLY HIT THIS INTO THE ABSOLUTE _GROUND_. ??? What the heck?!
Old radios and SW Listening is my hobby. I found your channel, and hit all your buttons, and rang the bell Stop in for a coffee sometime- LOL. DD21 in S.C. Old Radio Night
Great video showing how a long wire aerial will improve reception, I think it would have been a better presentation had you also extended the radios aerial for a comparison between your long wire and the supplied telescopic aerial plus the radios using neither.
Doesn't look like he's going to answer after this long, but I can answer that for him. Pulling the aerial up would not have made any difference. This is because that antenna is only hooked up to the FM part of the circuitry. The AM broadcast band in his radio uses the inside ferrite antenna only. Not sure about the shortwave bands on this one.
An old submariner man tried to answer a question why I would want feet and feet of wire to heard radio instead of less. In short I kind of got that the more wire is giving you the better chance of receiving the full length of the frequency You hope to hear, and very very long wires can hear really low frequencies..does that idea kind of right. I don't think I got the idea from him very well.
Your Submariner Friend confused the hell out of you or you forgot what he said. Very Low Frequency requires very long antenna and the Band Width is so narrow, you can't send anything but code......at a slow rate !! ....Here is an Good writeup on the subject = en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_with_submarines
So would this work if I tied one end of a long piece of insulated wire to a tree limb outside, ran the wire through a window into my house, wrapped the middle part of the wire around my radio, ran the other end of the wire back out through the window and tied it off to an outside ground?
Great demo, but did you try those same stations by turning the receiver in different directions using the built in ferrite rod to see the differences? I noticed the receiver stayed in one spot.
Very nice, thanks for uploading. This would be a good antenna for shortwave too, right? You would just need to clip it to the extendable antenna I guess.
I'm thinking of throwing a length of wire over my roof temporarily for the long part of the wire, then attaching the 4" loop to that to use with my Skywave.
You show a ground pipe, a wire stretched across a distance in your yard, a connection to your patio umbrella and a coil of wire straddling the corner of your radio, but no connection to (if there is one!) nor relationship between the coil, the wire, the umbrella [the trampoline either], and the ground pipe. How, at what juncture and where are the connections between the components of this antenna/signal booster concoction?
Its called inductive coupling. A simple and practical way of using a random long wire as a receiving antenna. the umbrella pole and kids trampoline also act as extra metal in the air whilst keeping the main element elevated. Not sure why your comment seems so sarcastic when the principle has been used in radio since its invention. I hope I have helped you in some way. God bless. 73 M6CYV
HaHaHa wire on trampoline just hangs (not connected to anything) runs to the umbrella (not connected to anything)wire drops and it's looped and THEN wire drops and THEN is connected to THE PIPE, so easy to understand.
Thank you for the video. I have a rather dumb question. I am living on 9th floor of a multi-storey building. So there are no trees to hang around the wire. All i have is a balcony. Many of them in fact. Is there a way to use some kind of antenna here? Also how do i deal with the grounding part? Thanks.
Good question. I am very fortunate in that I have a good bit of space to work with. I think if I was in your situation, I would probably spend some money on an external active antenna. I'm actually thinking about one called the Boni-Whip, which is really compact, wide band. Here's a link on Universal Radio: www.universal-radio.com/catalog/sw_ant/2531.html In answer to your question, I don't think the simple wire set-up I describe would work for you. You could probably ground it OK on a water pipe or something, but running a decent length of wire would be difficult.
@@Radiodog: Maybe you can try running the wire around the entire ceiling of a large room. I saw a similar video where the author simply grounded the end of the wire by holding it. Maybe you can ground the wire to something like a faucet. The coiling of the wire acts like a mini inductor. The more coils it has the better it can transfer what limited signal it received from the long wire. All you need is a lot of wire, a good bit of tape, and maybe your sweet self as the ground. A nice little project when the weather is bad and you've got some time to kill.
I didn't really understand the calculation of dividing the speed of light by the frequency then by 4 to get the optimal antenna length . can you explain that again ?
I have a metal roof on my house. I get a lot of static and no matter where I move the radio I can't get rid of it all and have poor reception. The internal radio antenna seems to override anything an external antenna picks up. The outdoor antenna loop only makes the static worse. What can I do to get rid of the static? Do I need to enclose the radio in a shield or use shielded wire to an external antenna outdoors or what? Help!
That’s one of the two bad points about external AM antennas. 1. They both pick up stations better when the antenna is running in parallel to the location of the station. If the stations are north or south of you the outside long wire needs to run in a east - west direction. 2. One thing that can be a major killer of one of these setups is simply the soil in your area doesn’t make a very good ground. Soils with a lot of sand content can be a killer. Also very dry soils can be a major killer. See if you can connect to something metal already in the ground such as the grounding rod installed by a power or cable company. Read my detailed comment posted on Tuesday September 27, 2022.
If I wanted to leave this up semi-permanent would it be wise to get a lightning arrestor? Do the "old fashioned" air-gap arrestors work? or do I need to spend $100 on a modern arrestor? Thanks!
Very interesting as I thought that I was one of the last people who listen to late night am broadcasting. Can you please help me with this one... I have an old cb antenna which extends about 30 feet into the air. It's already grounded 3 feet down with copper tubing. My coaxial cable runs through my down from my attic and is right behind my chair where the old cb radio was. Could I somehow utilize this to pick up far am signals? Please anyone chime in if you understand this
No, there's a few of us weird ones who love to listen to AM late night. I did a video a while back on how to connect an AM radio to an external antenna using a simple loop of wire. I'd give that a try on your CB antenna. I think it would probably work: ruclips.net/video/d1jaojiA1Oo/видео.html
Sorry. Excuse my ignorance but the wire from the trampoline ended up where? What is it's purpose? The red wire had the alligator clip clamped onto the pipe and the other end was looped into a circle. I got that. I'm lost with the black cable bit.
Just had a surprise. I missed my bfo unit. That is separate for my rig gives me ssb by mixing the signal from a stand alone unit. So as I was listening I picked my cellphone. The noise from the phone mixed to produce a reformed voice. In a word the noise mixed and returned a crude readable audio..😊😊😊😊😊😊
DO YOU KNOW HOW TO GET BETTER FM SIGNAL ON A SONY UNDER THE CABINET AM FM CD 💿 RADIO MODEL ICF-CD513 THE POWER CORD ACTS LIKE THE FM ANTENNA NO EXTERNAL ANTENNA HOOK UP PLEASE HELP PLEASE AND THANKS 🙏 I TYPE IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE OF MY BAD EYESIGHT I LOVE YOUR VIDEOS PLEASE KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK
Dear Sir, Could you clarify something: Black wire going from trampoline to patio umbrella, does the black wire END there is go to the red wire or what? Also, your red looped wire goes to copper pipe ground but where/what does it go to beyond the loop you made? This is confusing to possibly only me, you did good work, I just need these baby steps is all. THANK YOU SIR!!!! Crackles, I lost "IT" when I was 39 years old. Her name was Gertrude Thelmanrhiendt but her friends called her "Mount Everest Squared"
Thanks for the comment and question! It is probably a little confusing that I chose "junk" wire; I simply spliced together two strands of different colors to make one long strand. The colors are not significant. Think of the antenna this way: 1. Take a piece of wire of decent length, I'd say at least 70 feet or so. 2. String one end of the wire to a support as high as you possibly can. (For this demonstration, I simply tied the wire around the trampoline post, as high as I could reach.) Affix the wire so that there is at least 50+ feet in the air, in the clear. 3. Attach the other end of the wire to some sort of earth ground. (I tried it with a piece of junk metal tapped 12" into the ground and it worked fine.) There should be a good bit of wire left slack; you'll need it for Step 4. 4. At the radio location (here: my patio table), make a simple winding (or series of loops). I did 7 loops around the widest part of my hand and fashioned it into a nice round loop, held with tape.
@@Radiodog 5.The other end of the coil should be connected to the grounding pipe. 6. Put the coil close to the radio and tune on the radio station. Works for the LW/MW/SW broadcast bands. Probably works for FM.
@@RajVeer87156 Sometimes yes and sometimes no. FM reception is primarily best received when the length of the antenna is at a specific length that corresponds to the wavelength or (fraction thereof) of the frequency recieved.
Is this antenna directional? That is, if I'm in, for example, Harrisburg, PA, and I want to hear an NYC station, do I have to point the wire in the direction of NYC, or not.
Yes..........to some degree. Part of the reason why stations don't come in is because of the length of the ferrite rod that is inside the radio. The smaller the radio the shorter the ferrite rod that's inside of it. The bigger the radio the longer the ferrite rod that's inside of it. Longer ferrite rods pick up more signal. Another part of the problem is the time of day. Signals fade more during the sunlit hours of the day than during the night time hours (due to atmospheric propogation) so much that you might not be able to hear ANY station more than 100 miles away unless you have a GOOD radio (like a Sangean ATS 803A or ATS 909X). After the sun has gone down, the "big stations" start coming in so well that you might be able to hear stuff 500 miles away in numerous directions. Turning the radio in various directions may play a part in reception as well. The ferrite rod in AM radios picks up signal that is coming from one specific direction. Turning the radio on a horizontal axis will change the direction that the ferrite rod is picking up the signal. If you're in a specific area you can have the radio facing a WNW by ESE axis and be hearing signals clearly. If you turn the radio to an ENE by WSW axis you'll hear something totally different. The easiest thing to do is to experiment during various times of the day until you understand the principles of what you hear a lot more than what you do right now. I live in Burlington County NJ (20 miles east of Philadelphia) and can hear stations as far away as Illinois and Iowa between 11PM and 5 AM. But between 8AM and 9PM I can't hear anything more than 150 miles away in any direction. The part of that ability that I can't prove or disprove is that the radio that I use has a tuning dial that "gets close to the frequency" like this radio above does but the one that I have is a table top boom box that weights about 15 pounds. A digital readout radio that can be tuned to the EXACT frequency may be better even if you don't use an external antenna. Hopefully that helps a bit.
I found an experiment on a JAPANESE MW DX'er URL you may want to try. String out 10 meters/30 feet of cheap speaker wire. Shape the rest of the wire into a triangle hanging the tip DOWN. Prop the config up as best you can. I hung mine from the basement ceiling. You could use lengths of PVC stuck into the ground. To complete the down-pointing triangle, alternate the ends.. As said I used cheap speaker wire. One wire was colored silver, the other gold. You connect the gold ends to the silver ends. Wrap 5 turns around your portable radio at or near the "tip" at the bottom. Have fun! You will find this arrangement directive off the ends, NOT broadside..
Systems like this have three main sections. 1 The long vertical line that acts as an AM antenna itself. Two features can either kill it or make it superb. 1. The overall length of the vertical section, it’s height above the ground, and how straight it is. 2. Is it running parallel to the direction most of the AM stations in your region are located in? Say there’s a large major city to the south of your location (say New York City), and you’re in Danbury, Connecticut. Run the long wire in a east to west direction so if you were looking over the top of the wire you would be looking in the general direction of NYC. For the length of the long vertical wire technically the longer the better. One thing most people don’t consider is the overall height of the wire. Other than such blockers such as terrain, trees, and buildings one other killer is the magnetic field of the earth itself. The NOAA National weather service recommended that external antenna for weather radios be at least 6 ft high or better to counter the earths natural Dampening affect. The second (the wire loop) acts like a poor man’s electromagnet. Remember your 5th grade science projects? The more loops, the more current so a weaker signal coming from the long wire is passed on stronger to the internal AM antenna. The Third part can also be a killer. Just how good is your ground to the earth? Some soil types are better and some worse. Generally soils with a high sand content don’t make very good grounds. Also rather dry soils don’t ground very good. Your best ground overall is see if you can connect to an already existing ground, such as the copper rod installed by either a power or cable company. This lets the signal coming down from the long vertical wire flow with the least amount of Resistance. Ever watched one of those survival shows coming from places like Alaska and the cast member is listening to the radio? Most likely that station is at least 60 miles away or better. I heard on one of those shows they called it “Trapper Radio”. That’s how trappers in the boonies could get news from home.
Thanks for the video. If I wanted to research this design what is it called? I mean I'm looking for its proper name along the lines of other antennas I've heard of called, for instance, folded dipole, yagi, log periodic, etc. Thanks.
Another viewer said it was a "beverage basic antenna," but I'm not sure about that. Seems more like a random wire, grounded at one end. The coil simply provides inductance to the radio.
Has anyone tried this with a lot of loops? Say 21 or better. If so what were your results? Did it make stations come in cleaner? Or give you more distance stations? I see only one downside to over building it. You might pull in so many stations both far and near that they interfere with each other. We’ve got a WDAK in Columbus, Georgia at 540 and theirs also a 540 in Chattanooga Tennessee. Get halfway between the two stations with a long wire running in a west to east direction and you might wind up picking up both at the same time. That’s one of the reasons you sometimes need to be careful on which direction it runs.
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I grew up on the AM radio's 2nd WW news.( I was born in 1937). I still prefer AM radio to most of the other news outlets. Thank you for this very effective, cheap, and easy way, of gaining much better strength and clarity from my am radios. I live in a very remote area of the Mojave Desert in Southern California, and like to listen to talk radio from Los Angeles and San Francisco at night, before going to sleep. Los Angeles is about 180 miles SW of my home's location, and San Francisco is hundreds of miles to the NW of me. I easily made the antennae you explained in this video blog, and it works fantastically to triple the clarity of my nighttime broadcasts... Thank you again for your time, skill, and generosity, in making all your knowledge so available to those of us open and thankful for it, and you, on fabulous You Tube!
👏👏👏🙌
I made this for my clockradio in the bedroom. I lead the wires outside , the antennawire fixed across the entire length of the yard fence, for the ground wire i hammered an old metal tentpole into the ground and attached the wire using an automotive hoseclamp that i had in my stash. The coil fits over the casing of the clockradio. I'm in the south of the Netherlands and at night i was able to pick up AM stations from as dag as Germany, UK and Scotland, Italy, Spain and Romania! Works beyond expected!
How many turns does your coil have?
@@davidking5104 said 7 but does it have to have a coil to work if you run it straight to the radio
@@markbailey1423 I've already tried and worked perfectly with about 9 turns. You put the coil close to and on the part of the radio where is the AM circuit inside. (I mean the ferrite rod antenna)
@@markbailey1423 yes, it has to be a coil. Because you are setting up an inductive coupling with the ferriet antenne inside the radio casing.
Good project. Inductive coupling off a longwire. Very cool. And yes, the red wire and black wires obviously were connected. Black longwire to end of red wire, red wire coiled up to be set near the radio -- with the other end coming off the coil going to the ground rod. Very cool and inexpensive set up. And it works.
The black wire is not grounded?
Some people think it’s the radio but really it’s the antenna! Thank You for the post so the rest of us can “work” those stations better.🙏
For non radio people. It may not be obvious that the red wire and the black wire were joined
Thanks for clarifying that. I had thought that the red wire was looped 7 turns and then it was grounded on his lawn and that's it.
Now I see how that black wire was used in this set-up. Works great from what I have read in the comments.
Don't ever brow beat AM radio! The very fact they can run at less than full power can be a blessing. A couple of years back we had a hurricane come directly over the Columbus, Georgia area. Needless to say all the radio stations in town where down to lack of power save one. They had the sense to invest in a backup generator. They were running at reduced power off a 5000 watt generator in the parking lot and even had ham radio volunteers at the station keeping in touch with first responders at city hall.
wow - couldn't believe it when 830 WEEU in Reading came on !! my favorite station and the reason I was watching this video to find a better way to improve the reception !!
Im studying mechatronics engineering at Tanzania and now im planning to graduate with wireless power and signal transmission using tesla coil. I acually made huge step but in broadcast the sound was challenge. So i hope this will work for good 😊😊. Thank you sir!
Yeah the little ferrite rods in those small radios don’t pull in much. Nice homebrew antenna thanks for posting
Wow, impressive! I cannot understand anyone giving "thumbs down" on this demo :(
😅
In the 1990’s I purchased my very first short wave from a catalog. Upon arrival I was bummed out as it turned out to be a pocket radio , well I decided to try it out anyway and ended up picking up a station from Macau, clear as of it was next door. I will try your method as I love hearing radio stations from different places. Thank you very much.
Was it Portuguese or Chinese?
Hi Tom! When I was younger, and there were a bunch of Radio/Electronics magazines available, a little inexpensive gem like this would usually be found in a column called something like "Hints and Kinks for Radio Fans". I've heard that this method also works well for shortwave portables that lack an antenna jack. Just roll a solenoid coil a little wider than the telescopic antenna, maybe 20 turns or so, slip it over the bottom section of the telescopic antenna, and you're good to go. Now...if we could just do something about the propagation, and the quality of programming. God I miss Jean Shepherd...Excelsior! and 73, Karl
Karl Keller : Amen! Only talk radio is good! 😊
Hola, yo personalmente uso un tubo de chimenea metálica de 13 metros de largo y funciona muy bien para sintonizar a.m sw1 sw2 un abrazo saludos desde Chile
Nice build... simple and cheap. As you said we are never happy with the antennas we have. my backyard is full of antennas and still I am always looking for a "Better Antenna"... thanks for sharing and 73 Brian
Where you at?! We miss your videos man!!!
Be safe and 73s
Some construction details from Radiodog
"Think of the antenna this way:
1. Take a piece of wire of decent length, I'd say at least 70 feet or so.
2. String one end of the wire to a support as high as you possibly can. (For this demonstration, I simply tied the wire around the trampoline post, as high as I could reach.) Affix the wire so that there is at least 50+ feet in the air, in the clear.
3. Attach the other end of the wire to some sort of earth ground. (I tried it with a piece of junk metal tapped 12" into the ground and it worked fine.) There should be a good bit of wire left slack; you'll need it for Step 4.
4. At the radio location (here: my patio table), make a simple winding (or series of loops). I did 7 loops around the widest part of my hand and fashioned it into a nice round loop, held with tape."
So is this a tried and true method?
One way to get your long wire up very very high safely is to simply to connect something to it you can toss up very high. A simple rod & reel comes to mind. Toss the line up, cut it and use the line to drag the line up. Do the very same for the other end drag it up. Tie the ends of the fishing lines to the two trees and viola you have it. Need to pull it down? Simply cut the fishing lines.
I’m gonna build this. Thank you and stay safe! Greetings from Philippines.
Thank you VERY MUCH! for the video. Amazing results! Really easy and cheap. The best results I have seen so far from AM antennas, even better than any expensive antenna.
Thanks for posting.
The old AM radios we have pull in almost nothing here in central Florida. Can't wait to see how this improves them!
Since it worked for MW, you should try it for the long wave band since it's a passive non tunable antenna. It should work.
I made one today, I had some very long lengths of 12awg wire that was not being used for anything from an old well pump. Wire nutted two together to make it around 100' long. I have another to go even longer, might do that for 150'. It works well. I am using a ccradio 2e which already has very good am reception, this homemade antenna made it a lot better. Some channels like 50% better, sometimes the difference can be between a channel being barely understandable to never missing a single word. My grounding rod is just a piece of rebar, pounded it about one foot into the ground. It was old an rusty, used an angle grinder to remove rust off a portion for good contact. Another thing to note, my coil is inside a shed, routed the wires outside the shed, grounding rod is next to the shed door and the antenna runs up a hill into some woods.
Pour salt water on your ground rod location....a good soaking. Plus you can buy a 4 ft ground rod too. My metal camper roof structure is anchored to the ground so I just ran hookup wire to a bolt on it outside my camper window. Then ran a 100 ft length from a window to a tree on the end of my camper away from the electric meter. Before this it was impossible to get a signal on AM or shortwave in my camper. I connect this with a mono audio cable to my AN-200 AM Loop Antenna for normal radios and directly to my Tecsun PL-330. I also discovered that it even works to boost AM with any shortwave receiver with an antenna input. But the PL-330 can be set for external AM antennas.
@@baneverything5580 I remember once being told you can (and should) urinate on an antenna. I wasn't sure if I was just being joked with. What's the purpose of this (or the salt water)?
@@toonz9971 The salt water in the soil around the earth ground helps it make better electrical contact since salt is conductive. Some soils may not contain many conductive minerals or the ground rod may not be deep enough and in a pinch the salt water (keep the soil around the ground wet) may help the antenna/ground system function better.
@@toonz9971 And speaking of conductive soils and salt, most single frequency metal detectors are useless on a saltwater beach in the wet sand. They will beep (or false) over the wet salt water and minerals when no metal of gold ring is really there. But now Minelab, the company who made the very expensive metal detectors always seen being used on beaches, has released the Minelab Vanquish 340, 440, and 540. With these inexpensive multi frequency machines regular people can now hunt for gold rings on the beaches and find deep silver coins on land. The Vanquish 340 is only 200 bucks.
Great video! Thanks a lot. I tested Your patent because before I made simple random wire (~20m) antenna with grounding for my Sudety R-208 receiver. It works very good. On my Panasonic RF-3500 portable RX with Your tip I'm listening now some stations from Romania (Actualitati 1152 kHz and others, Czech Republic (CRo Plus, Dvojka, Dechovka), Moldova (Vesti FM 1413 kHz, Moldova Actualitati 1494 kHz), Hungary (MR1 Kossuth 540 kHz, Danko Radio 1251 kHz, MR4 1188kHz) - in Poland at 12 30 UTC (it's daytime!). Unfortunately, I have some local interferences which make reception difficult. Really useful tip!
This is most helpful for sets that don't have autonomous AM antenna terminals. In the house I make do with "ultimate AM antenna" plans that were ages ago included with Carver tuners. The "spread" of a long wire like this isn't there, but it's good enough for my auto-off bedtime radio. I often pull in CFZM 740, almost 600 miles away.
Yeah Just imagine blowing someone’s mind. You’re in Sacramento California and you’re picking up the live broadcast of “The Grand Old Opry. They hear Station identifier of WSM Nashville Tennessee and then go say what?
Thanks for simple solution to a long time problem of mine 😊😊😊 God bless you .😊😊😊
The most recent question/comment I see was from 3 months ago, so I'll venture a question regarding the wire hook up. You have the black wire running from your trampoline to the patio umbrella, but not physically attached to the radio in anyway? And the red wire with the loop is your ground wire physically attached to the copper ground pole in the earth, with your 7 or 8 wire turns, but not physically attached the radio, other than brought up close to the external body of the radio, which does seem to work. So the radio is inducting a signal from the red wire.
I have an antique radio that has spring activated connections for an antenna, a ground, a short distance/local station connector and a long distance connector. I have recently finished a restoration on this Atwater-Kent, Model 55. As part of the restoration I had the tubes tested and 2 needed to be replaced. Upon turning on the unit, all the tubes have significant glow and I get some static through the speaker. I thought it was worth trying a cheapo AM loop antenna ( 2 wires, black and white) as an experiment. I don't think the antenna is suitable for a great distance. For a brief moment, 2 or 3 seconds maybe, I heard a voice, somewhere near the bottom end of the band, But that was it; I tried switching the black and white wire which made no difference. Would you think the antenna is too short/small or needs to be outside ? Looking for a suggestion. Otherwise all I'm getting is a small/weak amount of static across the band.
Wow, really amazing. And so easy..., i can't beleave it :o) Thank you very much for this interesting and helpful video!
So your using the globe as an antenna, thanks for your video, I wish I knew this stuff in the 80s
Amazing video, thumbs up for sure..
I am going to give a try with this antenna. I also possess this radio set. Thank you
a brilliant experiment that's got me thinking I can tell you many thanks have a good one Rob
Very nice and informative
instructive video. Cheap and useful tip! 73!
Very informative thanks. Will try this.
Hector, UK.
Tom I have tried this with speaker wire. It did work fine. Probably would have worked better with the kind of wire you used
One other RUclips Video has a long wire running between two glass Insulators down the length of his roof top. He’s got the large loop inside his basement, and Grounded off to a copper water pipe. Good idea because he said that this was the only viable alternative since he only lived on a 1/4 acre lot. One other way is to use one of those clothing lines in the shape of a Carasol. You know one of those clothes lines that is in the shape of a rounded dome. Wrap up your long wire around it from top to bottom using zip ties with as many wraps as you can. This won’t bring in as many distant stations but it will being in stations from all around you in all directions.
Gonna try it!
Great idea.going to try it.thanks.
Thanks a lot, I will try this method at home too.
Thank you, amazing results. I would have liked you to have also demonstrated the difference without grounding the red wire.
cheers
Please...without ground
Great video.
Tom is it possible for you to do a video comparing this style outdoor antenna compared to the Tecsun loop antenna?! Thanks! 73’s from Mn
Great video. Thanks!
I do something similar but for FM radio. I've got a portable that has a jack for an external FM antenna. I just connect a simple wire that has a 1/4 inch plug on both ends. Hang one end of the wire near the top of the door with clips or tape and I've got nearly three times the stations coming in. Not bad for a wire only five or six feet long. The only problem is the wire needs to stay vertical. If I used a wire as long as you use hanging from the top of the house or a nearby tree top I could be picking up Cuba.
Wooow, that is looks like magic.
Wow Great idea sir
Where is the long wire attached?
It goes to the umbrella and then where?
Or is that it?
Impressive results. Thanks.
Im doing that tomorrow! thanks.
nice antenna 📶 nice work
Yes It is :)
73s
Love this idea. Copying. 👍
Good work thanks for the video 73s
nice work, ,😊
Thank you!
I want to ask...someone makes an antenna like that...and you put it on the am band.! Can an antenna like that also be used for the SW band...? Please explain because I'm still a layman
I like. mine is 4 turns of #24 wire in a heat shrink shield about one foot in length.after makeing 4 passes with #24 wire put one end on a ground the other on 20' of number 18 gage stranded wire as the in put/ANTENNA. Drape loop on radio . Just like yours. Mine will cover 160 to 20 meters fine condition.
Cool gonna try it
A good stopgap! BUT, I'll be REALLY impressed if you take your hand off of it and then compare the "before and after". Those of us above a certain age remember that trick with Rabbit Ears, lol...
It works without touching the coil. I did something similar with two very long wires as a dipole, no ground, and a 100 turn coil of 24 AWG magnet wire on a paper towel tube.
Oh it works alright ^^
@@DXPedro Oh, I know it works, and I thank you for inspiring me to take a run at it. I've done it for every radio and component tuner in my house (and there are a lot of them). I used a 5/8"x6" Stainless bolt and it works really well. I was just having a little fun with your testing parameters. As long as fingers (or anything that's magnetic) is close to the coil, you're giving a little helping hand (okay, fingers) to the results. The same thing happens with SW boosters like those sold by MFJ. If you want to have some real fun you can try cascading those two together (i.e., with a tunable antenna), and then you can get even more interesting results, especially with selectivity. My big problem with all OTA formats now is there being less than ever to actually listen to...I still DX for both FM and AM, but except for a little bit of morning weekend NPR and a couple of overnight skip AM stations playing Jazz, there's not much to hear OTA anymore. It's very geographically eccentric, and I'm a retired Classical/Jazz Musician and you can only listen to so much Miles (as much as I like him) or Pachelbel's greatest hit (and it makes money when playing weddings) and not get tired of the lack of actual diversity of programming out there these days...off soapbox, Lol... thanks again...
@@Ricktpt1 on that regard, I just catch Austrian Radio International that only broadcasts 90min a day with great great classical selection. sorry to plug it like this, but feel free to check it on my channel.
I can still catch plenty AM here in portugal, mostly north africa and spain, but it'snot uncommon for me o catch england or italy as well.
have a great week.
I totally CAN'T UNDESTAND THIS! 😐
You use a long copper pipe as the literal antenna, BUT You TOTALLY HIT THIS INTO THE ABSOLUTE _GROUND_.
???
What the heck?!
Old radios and SW Listening is my hobby. I found your channel, and hit all your buttons, and rang the bell Stop in for a coffee sometime- LOL. DD21 in S.C. Old Radio Night
Quick question. Does the distance from the colied wire to the grounding section matter?
Seems working !
What is the end other than the one connected to the grounding rod attached to??
Great video showing how a long wire aerial will improve reception, I think it would have been a better presentation had you also extended the radios aerial for a comparison between your long wire and the supplied telescopic aerial plus the radios using neither.
Doesn't look like he's going to answer after this long, but I can answer that for him. Pulling the aerial up would not have made any difference. This is because that antenna is only hooked up to the FM part of the circuitry. The AM broadcast band in his radio uses the inside ferrite antenna only. Not sure about the shortwave bands on this one.
An old submariner man tried to answer a question why I would want feet and feet of wire to heard radio instead of less.
In short I kind of got that the more wire is giving you the better chance of receiving the full length of the frequency
You hope to hear, and very very long wires can hear really low frequencies..does that idea kind of right.
I don't think I got the idea from him very well.
Your Submariner Friend confused the hell out of you or you forgot what he said. Very Low Frequency requires very long antenna and the Band Width is so narrow, you can't send anything but code......at a slow rate !! ....Here is an Good writeup on the subject = en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_with_submarines
So would this work if I tied one end of a long piece of insulated wire to a tree limb outside, ran the wire through a window into my house, wrapped the middle part of the wire around my radio, ran the other end of the wire back out through the window and tied it off to an outside ground?
Great demo, but did you try those same stations by turning the receiver in different directions using the built in ferrite rod to see the differences? I noticed the receiver stayed in one spot.
Very nice, thanks for uploading. This would be a good antenna for shortwave too, right? You would just need to clip it to the extendable antenna I guess.
The reception is great! I wonder how a ferrite rod based booster would behave in this case.
Try it. Experimentation is fun!
Would the lighting rod system on my house make a good grounding system for my am radios
Thanks....
Hello sir good results reaction i am really happy you r is good
I have that radio. It’s over 20 years old!
The component I am missing is the backyard. (the outdoors)
Just crystal set technology !
I'm thinking of throwing a length of wire over my roof temporarily for the long part of the wire, then attaching the 4" loop to that to use with my Skywave.
CW Roberts Tablets : Get it in the air someway! That is what is important!
And the grounding as well
Reading is also about 100 miles from me in the UK!
You show a ground pipe, a wire stretched across a distance in your yard, a connection to your patio umbrella and a coil of wire straddling the corner of your radio, but no connection to (if there is one!) nor relationship between the coil, the wire, the umbrella [the trampoline either], and the ground pipe. How, at what juncture and where are the connections between the components of this antenna/signal booster concoction?
Thanks for the reply. I think you'll find the answers to your questions in my response to Crackles McFarly, below.
Its called inductive coupling. A simple and practical way of using a random long wire as a receiving antenna. the umbrella pole and kids trampoline also act as extra metal in the air whilst keeping the main element elevated. Not sure why your comment seems so sarcastic when the principle has been used in radio since its invention. I hope I have helped you in some way. God bless. 73 M6CYV
@@KennethNicholson1972 Even your reply is vague; why do people always think sarcasm/troll when someone criticizes? God bless
HaHaHa wire on trampoline just hangs (not connected to anything) runs to the umbrella (not connected to anything)wire drops and it's looped and THEN wire drops and THEN is connected to THE PIPE, so easy to understand.
Thank you for the video. I have a rather dumb question. I am living on 9th floor of a multi-storey building. So there are no trees to hang around the wire. All i have is a balcony. Many of them in fact. Is there a way to use some kind of antenna here? Also how do i deal with the grounding part?
Thanks.
Good question. I am very fortunate in that I have a good bit of space to work with. I think if I was in your situation, I would probably spend some money on an external active antenna. I'm actually thinking about one called the Boni-Whip, which is really compact, wide band. Here's a link on Universal Radio:
www.universal-radio.com/catalog/sw_ant/2531.html
In answer to your question, I don't think the simple wire set-up I describe would work for you. You could probably ground it OK on a water pipe or something, but running a decent length of wire would be difficult.
@@Radiodog Thanks. Will check this out. By the way would routing a vertical wire from 11th floor to 9th floor work ?
@@Radiodog: Maybe you can try running the wire around the entire ceiling of a large room. I saw a similar video where the author simply grounded the end of the wire by holding it. Maybe you can ground the wire to something like a faucet. The coiling of the wire acts like a mini inductor. The more coils it has the better it can transfer what limited signal it received from the long wire. All you need is a lot of wire, a good bit of tape, and maybe your sweet self as the ground. A nice little project when the weather is bad and you've got some time to kill.
Build a tune-able loop. Very easy and incredibly effective. Sits next to the radio. There are many designs online. Just use google.
My house has metal roof. Any thoughts ideas on connecting end to the roof??
Get a cheap mini-whip antenna. Ground it to your roof.
great and informative ....do you have to use copper for the ground?
thanks...
No...an earlier version seemed to work pretty well with just a 12" piece of steel. Cooper is probably best, though.
I didn't really understand the calculation of dividing the speed of light by the frequency then by 4 to get the optimal antenna length . can you explain that again ?
Would coaxial cable work as a loop antenna?
I don't think so...but someone smarter than me probably knows how to make it work.
@@Radiodog If you used the outer conductor (or both inner and outer connected together) it would work.
I have a metal roof on my house. I get a lot of static and no matter where I move the radio I can't get rid of it all and have poor reception. The internal radio antenna seems to override anything an external antenna picks up. The outdoor antenna loop only makes the static worse. What can I do to get rid of the static? Do I need to enclose the radio in a shield or use shielded wire to an external antenna outdoors or what? Help!
That’s one of the two bad points about external AM antennas. 1. They both pick up stations better when the antenna is running in parallel to the location of the station. If the stations are north or south of you the outside long wire needs to run in a east - west direction. 2. One thing that can be a major killer of one of these setups is simply the soil in your area doesn’t make a very good ground. Soils with a lot of sand content can be a killer. Also very dry soils can be a major killer. See if you can connect to something metal already in the ground such as the grounding rod installed by a power or cable company. Read my detailed comment posted on Tuesday September 27, 2022.
If I wanted to leave this up semi-permanent would it be wise to get a lightning arrestor? Do the "old fashioned" air-gap arrestors work? or do I need to spend $100 on a modern arrestor? Thanks!
What's it like on FM? Crazy how you loop it together a bunch of times and place it on the corner what a difference.
FM is completely different. Just know that this trick will bring in AM stations from hundreds of miles away (especially at night). FM won't work here.
@@rickvia8435 okay I listen to FM more than AM I was hoping it would have the same result.
Very interesting as I thought that I was one of the last people who listen to late night am broadcasting. Can you please help me with this one... I have an old cb antenna which extends about 30 feet into the air. It's already grounded 3 feet down with copper tubing. My coaxial cable runs through my down from my attic and is right behind my chair where the old cb radio was. Could I somehow utilize this to pick up far am signals? Please anyone chime in if you understand this
No, there's a few of us weird ones who love to listen to AM late night. I did a video a while back on how to connect an AM radio to an external antenna using a simple loop of wire. I'd give that a try on your CB antenna. I think it would probably work: ruclips.net/video/d1jaojiA1Oo/видео.html
Nice aidea
Sorry. Excuse my ignorance but the wire from the trampoline ended up where? What is it's purpose? The red wire had the alligator clip clamped onto the pipe and the other end was looped into a circle. I got that.
I'm lost with the black cable bit.
It’s just tied to the trampoline ;)
Just had a surprise. I missed my bfo unit. That is separate for my rig gives me ssb by mixing the signal from a stand alone unit. So as I was listening I picked my cellphone. The noise from the phone mixed to produce a reformed voice. In a word the noise mixed and returned a crude readable audio..😊😊😊😊😊😊
Tom, what city in Pennsylvania are you in or close by? Thanks! 73’s from St Paul Mn
DO YOU KNOW HOW TO GET BETTER FM SIGNAL ON A SONY UNDER THE CABINET AM FM CD 💿 RADIO MODEL ICF-CD513 THE POWER CORD ACTS LIKE THE FM ANTENNA NO EXTERNAL ANTENNA HOOK UP PLEASE HELP PLEASE AND THANKS 🙏 I TYPE IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE OF MY BAD EYESIGHT I LOVE YOUR VIDEOS PLEASE KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK
What's the opposite end of antenna/red wire attached to? Not shown. Thanks.
One end was on the trampoline(black) wire the other to ground. Watch again.
Hello.
How many turns?
So where is the end of the black wire connected under the umbrella???
what will really prove it is what area you live in and what stations you can pick up during the day.
Cool!
Dear Sir,
Could you clarify something:
Black wire going from trampoline to patio umbrella, does the black wire END there is go to the red wire or what?
Also, your red looped wire goes to copper pipe ground but where/what does it go to beyond the loop you made?
This is confusing to possibly only me, you did good work, I just need these baby steps is all.
THANK YOU SIR!!!!
Crackles,
I lost "IT" when I was 39 years old. Her name was Gertrude Thelmanrhiendt but her friends called her "Mount Everest Squared"
Thanks for the comment and question! It is probably a little confusing that I chose "junk" wire; I simply spliced together two strands of different colors to make one long strand. The colors are not significant.
Think of the antenna this way:
1. Take a piece of wire of decent length, I'd say at least 70 feet or so.
2. String one end of the wire to a support as high as you possibly can. (For this demonstration, I simply tied the wire around the trampoline post, as high as I could reach.) Affix the wire so that there is at least 50+ feet in the air, in the clear.
3. Attach the other end of the wire to some sort of earth ground. (I tried it with a piece of junk metal tapped 12" into the ground and it worked fine.) There should be a good bit of wire left slack; you'll need it for Step 4.
4. At the radio location (here: my patio table), make a simple winding (or series of loops). I did 7 loops around the widest part of my hand and fashioned it into a nice round loop, held with tape.
does this antenna work for FM reception too?
@@Radiodog 5.The other end of the coil should be connected to the grounding pipe. 6. Put the coil close to the radio and tune on the radio station. Works for the LW/MW/SW broadcast bands. Probably works for FM.
@@RajVeer87156 Sometimes yes and sometimes no. FM reception is primarily best received when the length of the antenna is at a specific length that corresponds to the wavelength or (fraction thereof) of the frequency recieved.
@Dave Smith Yes, you can do that.
Is this antenna directional? That is, if I'm in, for example, Harrisburg, PA, and I want to hear an NYC station, do I have to point the wire in the direction of NYC, or not.
Yes..........to some degree. Part of the reason why stations don't come in is because of the length of the ferrite rod that is inside the radio. The smaller the radio the shorter the ferrite rod that's inside of it. The bigger the radio the longer the ferrite rod that's inside of it. Longer ferrite rods pick up more signal.
Another part of the problem is the time of day. Signals fade more during the sunlit hours of the day than during the night time hours (due to atmospheric propogation) so much that you might not be able to hear ANY station more than 100 miles away unless you have a GOOD radio (like a Sangean ATS 803A or ATS 909X). After the sun has gone down, the "big stations" start coming in so well that you might be able to hear stuff 500 miles away in numerous directions.
Turning the radio in various directions may play a part in reception as well. The ferrite rod in AM radios picks up signal that is coming from one specific direction. Turning the radio on a horizontal axis will change the direction that the ferrite rod is picking up the signal.
If you're in a specific area you can have the radio facing a WNW by ESE axis and be hearing signals clearly. If you turn the radio to an ENE by WSW axis you'll hear something totally different. The easiest thing to do is to experiment during various times of the day until you understand the principles of what you hear a lot more than what you do right now.
I live in Burlington County NJ (20 miles east of Philadelphia) and can hear stations as far away as Illinois and Iowa between 11PM and 5 AM. But between 8AM and 9PM I can't hear anything more than 150 miles away in any direction. The part of that ability that I can't prove or disprove is that the radio that I use has a tuning dial that "gets close to the frequency" like this radio above does but the one that I have is a table top boom box that weights about 15 pounds.
A digital readout radio that can be tuned to the EXACT frequency may be better even if you don't use an external antenna.
Hopefully that helps a bit.
nudist1033 - That was a great explanation on AM radio reception. Thank you for that. Now, if we can just get you some clothes...
That's really good info that I will make use of. Thanks.
I found an experiment on a JAPANESE MW DX'er URL you may want to try. String out 10 meters/30 feet of cheap speaker wire. Shape the rest of the wire into a triangle hanging the tip DOWN. Prop the config up as best you can. I hung mine from the basement ceiling. You could use lengths of PVC stuck into the ground. To complete the down-pointing triangle, alternate the ends.. As said I used cheap speaker wire. One wire was colored silver, the other gold. You connect the gold ends to the silver ends. Wrap 5 turns around your portable radio at or near the "tip" at the bottom. Have fun! You will find this arrangement directive off the ends, NOT broadside..
Cool
Systems like this have three main sections. 1 The long vertical line that acts as an AM antenna itself. Two features can either kill it or make it superb. 1. The overall length of the vertical section, it’s height above the ground, and how straight it is. 2. Is it running parallel to the direction most of the AM stations in your region are located in? Say there’s a large major city to the south of your location (say New York City), and you’re in Danbury, Connecticut. Run the long wire in a east to west direction so if you were looking over the top of the wire you would be looking in the general direction of NYC. For the length of the long vertical wire technically the longer the better. One thing most people don’t consider is the overall height of the wire. Other than such blockers such as terrain, trees, and buildings one other killer is the magnetic field of the earth itself. The NOAA National weather service recommended that external antenna for weather radios be at least 6 ft high or better to counter the earths natural Dampening affect. The second (the wire loop) acts like a poor man’s electromagnet. Remember your 5th grade science projects? The more loops, the more current so a weaker signal coming from the long wire is passed on stronger to the internal AM antenna. The Third part can also be a killer. Just how good is your ground to the earth? Some soil types are better and some worse. Generally soils with a high sand content don’t make very good grounds. Also rather dry soils don’t ground very good. Your best ground overall is see if you can connect to an already existing ground, such as the copper rod installed by either a power or cable company. This lets the signal coming down from the long vertical wire flow with the least amount of Resistance. Ever watched one of those survival shows coming from places like Alaska and the cast member is listening to the radio? Most likely that station is at least 60 miles away or better. I heard on one of those shows they called it “Trapper Radio”. That’s how trappers in the boonies could get news from home.
Thanks for the video. If I wanted to research this design what is it called? I mean I'm looking for its proper name along the lines of other antennas I've heard of called, for instance, folded dipole, yagi, log periodic, etc. Thanks.
Another viewer said it was a "beverage basic antenna," but I'm not sure about that. Seems more like a random wire, grounded at one end. The coil simply provides inductance to the radio.
Has anyone tried this with a lot of loops? Say 21 or better. If so what were your results? Did it make stations come in cleaner? Or give you more distance stations? I see only one downside to over building it. You might pull in so many stations both far and near that they interfere with each other. We’ve got a WDAK in Columbus, Georgia at 540 and theirs also a 540 in Chattanooga Tennessee. Get halfway between the two stations with a long wire running in a west to east direction and you might wind up picking up both at the same time. That’s one of the reasons you sometimes need to be careful on which direction it runs.