Aerial and Earth Systems
By “Starlite”
From the 1948/49 “Lamphouse” Annual
The early pioneers of radio were once faced by a very serious problem. Their crude attempts at transmission were being held up as the range achieved was extremely limited. Someone got the bright idea of suspending a piece of wire in the air. Thus the aerial was born. The earth was the logical conclusion. Radio transmission and reception experiments increased in efficiency.
The same holds good today.
Remember the good old ferrite loopstick antenna? Well, the FSL (ferrite sleeve loop) is a loopstick on steroids. Gary DeBock is one of many hobbyists who have been experimenting with these imposing antennas, sort of the boat anchor of aerials! His interesting article appears on Colin Newall’s dxer.ca site.
In New Zealand, the majority of used shortwave radios are bought and sold via the on-line auction site TradeMe.
But which of them are cherries and which are lemons? There is a useful guide on the dxing.com website. The list of receivers rated appear on this list. The receivers ratings using ‘H’s instead of stars, seem to reflect general opinion as far as the tried and true experience of NZ DXers goes, with one exception. The Yaesu FRG7 receives a top-rank, however they pale in comparison to the actual performance of even some HHH rated sets.
Posted in Receivers, Technical
Tagged auction, DXing, radio, Shortwave radio, TradeMe, used receiver
Whether you’re a ham, MW or SW DXer, there are times when a receive antenna will be very handy. I’ve experimented with EWEs, K9AYs and coax loops. Just recently, Shared Apex Loop Arrays have received a lot of publicity and this excellent Youtube presentation certainly caught my interest.
Here is a good PDF article from the designer, Mark Baumann.
And now Array Solutions are selling them.
Very compact and as for performance, we’ll let the Youtube video provide the answer.
Comments Off on The Ultimate Compact MW DX Antenna?
Posted in Antennas, Medium Wave, Technical
John Bryant at Grayland DXpedition (credit: dxing.info)
John Bryant (sadly no longer with us) penned many useful and practical technical articles for DXers looking to eke the extra out of their radios and antennas.
Here is an article showing how to add an external MW antenna to your Tecsun/Degen radio.
Luckily for us, John’s articles live on thanks to the internet.
John’s obituary on dxer.ca web site.
…don’t get these guys to do it!
You must be a member of the New Zealand Radio DX League to access this SDR.
