Hello Mike,
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
I have been using a home built active antenna a friend bought me off
Ebay, probably a close copy of the "proper" one I feel guilty about
having a clone of. It's in a home built capped waste water pipe
housing near the top of my lattice mast, on its fibreglass topmost
section. I have found it does not work as well feeding my dedicated LF
receiver, one of these:
http://icas.to/lineup/idc-136ii-kit-eng.htm
as does my transmitting, resonant aerial. That's a vertical with a
horizontal quad loop as its top hat.
This active antenna is just using the dedicated PCB section as the
antenna, maybe I should add an external piece of stiff wire to it? I
am certainly not plagued by any strong transmissions near here, it's
normally our own electric fences that cause me issues.But sharing a TX
aerial with a receiver is a pain. As is sharing my HF loop with an LF
TX.... :( I need more aerials, but I do not need a divorce. Difficult!
I would and could invest in a dedicated receiver for LF though,
something hopefully better than the one in the link above. Space isn't
an issue. Any suggestions for something commercially available? I am
not incompetent at building stuff, I simply do not have the time at
the moment, due to work. I have used my Kenwood TS-590 as an LF
receiver, but again, as it's also the exciter form y LF amp, it's a
pain swapping stuff about. I really want something I can leave on RX
all the time like the IDC-136ii above, but better... Thanks.
Best regards,
Chris 2E0ILY mailto:[email protected]
My part time LF grabber is at http://www.chriswilson.tv/grabber.html
> Hugh's advice is excellent - adequate sensitvity, a resonant antenna
> and good front-end filtering. I would add good dynamic range, an
> effective noise blanker and ideally a way to reduce or switch off the
> AGC. After fittng the filters, there should still be a large
> difference in background noise when the antenna is connected.
> Local noise is a major factor, and it may be necessary to have a
> separate receive antenna, situated and oriented away from the noise
> source.
> Lastly, it can help to have a directional (preferably steerable)
> antenna to reduce lightning noise away from the wanted direction.
> Mike, G3XDV
> ============
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