Shortwave antenna wire routing.

For a Shortwave receiving antenna,

I want to run about 30ft of insulated wire from my house to a nearby tree. I plan to use 14 gauge stranded insulated wire, normally used to wire a house.

The house has aluminum siding. I do not care to make a hole in the siding for entrance of this wire. The only hole will be an insulator screwed into the eaves.

My aluminum storm windows have 2 small drain holes on the bottom, which are large enough for this wire. My plan is to run the wire thru one of those holes. On the inside window, I'll put a strip of 1/4" thick foam weather stripping on the bottom so it seals tight but still allows the wire into the house.

However, I am wondering if the capacitance involved where that wire goes thru the aluminum storm window hole, will cause a large loss in my signal? (The home siding is grounded, so the storm window is also grounded).

One other thing, I know trees move in the wind, so I want to compensate for that. I was thinking of putting an insulator on the tree end of the wire, then putting one of those storm door springs between that insulator and the tree. That way the spring can stretch as the tree moves. Is this a good solution, or is there a better way?

Reply to
oldschool
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It should be no problem. A receiver is not usually fussy about matching. Of course, mismatch produces loss, but the atmospheric noise level on HF bands is quite high, so you'll get the signals in anyway.

Please pay attention to thunderstorm protection and see that the wire has a loop downward on the outside to drop off water before it will come in along the cable.

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-TV
Reply to
Tauno Voipio

So the house is a Faraday cage. This will help keep all kinds of interference inside the house. Thus the outdoor antenna doesn't pickup much interference from the house.

Is those holes big enough to pass some thin coaxial cable, such as RG-174 ? If so, connect a coaxial cable to the receiver and the other end just through the hole. Just outside, connect the coax center conductor to your outdoor antenna. This should help reducing the noise pickup also from inside the house.

Reply to
upsidedown

The old long wire antenna certainly works. You need an insulator at the tre e end - no need for fancy ceraics though, a bit of plastic twine does fine. Re a spring, don't arrange it so the wire gets pulled tight, no spring req uired. Movement in the wind has very little effect in practice.

Do make sure there are much taller structures nearby than the tree, or it'l l be a lightning hazard.

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

Recently, even the noise levels haven't been high!

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Reply to
Cursitor Doom

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