Difference between revisions of "HF Antennas"

Revision as of 12:43, 7 September 2021

No doubt about it, without a good antenna, no matter how good the receiver, you will not hear much of anything. These links should help even a newcomer feel comfortable about selecting and installing a HF antenna. There's several technical links for the experimenters in us, along with several commercial retailers. Warm up those soldering irons and get busy!

If you're a newcomer or old hat, or anywhere in between, when installing antennas, Safety First.
Make this link a must read. Don't become a statistic!

Commercial Retailers

Active Antennas (Indoors)

Active Antennas (Outdoor)

SWLing.com Aritcles

Array Solutions

Array Solutions Antennas

DX Engineering Products

Other Manufacturers/Suppliers

Amateur / Commercial

Receive Only

Wideband Verticals

Other Designs

Homebrew and Technical

Where to start?

What is HAAT?
What is ERP?
Antenna Basics
If you are using a portable and want to add a bit of protection against static electricity, or want to add a crude RF Gain control, see this article for a simple project you can build.

What about indoors?

Technical and construction topics

A Waterproof Shielded Housing for Active Short Monopole Antennas (PDF)
Active Antennas KB6RWX
Amateur 7 Element Yagi calculator
An Attic Coaxial Cable Trap Dipole for 10,15,20,30,40 and 80 Meters
Antenna Lessons from Old Timers (EHam article)
Antenna Projects of Frank N4SPP
Beverage Antenna
Bobtails and Half Squares
Broadband Butterfly Terminated Dipole (YouTube)
Dallas Lankford's Library in zip format, via DXer.ca
Broadband Butterfly Terminated Dipole (YouTube video)
Broomstick Antenna
Complementary Push Pull Amplifiers for Active Antennas (PDF)
DIY Antenna Mounting Bracket
End Fed Half wave wire
The EWE in the Garden
49:1 End Fed Half Wave Antenna 80-10 meters (YouTube video)
Need a coax attachment to feed a fan dipole? Take a look at the Fan Dipole Attachment designed by chgomonitor
Feeding a Folded Dipole
Grounding Bulkhead with supressors for your scanning station
- Although the above article mentions a scanning station, this applies to HF, too
Grounding is Key to Good Reception (Blog article)
HFLink ALE Antennas (fan dipoles)
Homebrew rotatable ferrite antenna via SWLing.com
Joe Carr's Technical Notes - via DXing.com
Hard Core DX Antennas Page - Technical Discussions, Plans, Hidden Antennas and more
How to Build a Simple Linear Loaded Dipole for low noise SW Listening via SWLing.com
Magnetic Longwire Balun - Not really a Balun
Magnetic Longwire Balun - A Con or Not?
Monitoring Times - All About Antennas
Palomar Engineers - Bullitt application notes
- Go about 2/3 of the way down for a 37 foot version
PA0FRI Technical Information for Hams
Reinventing the tape dipole via eHam
Shortened Folded Dipoles via eHam
Six Band HF Center-Loaded Off Center Fed Dipole
Stealth Antennas - Amazon Kindle
The Terminated Tilted Folded Dipole (T2FD)
The Folded Dipole Antenna
The Snake Antenna (eHam)
49:1 End Fed Multiband Antenna (YouTube)

Indexed Links

AMANDX Indexed Articles

AMANDX = Association of Manitoba DXers. Their home page is here

Reviews

Mailing Lists/forums

End Fed Half Wave Antennas (Facebook)

@@ Line 85: / Line 85: @@
 * [https://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/sw_ant/1026.html Apex Radio 303WA-2]
 ** {{Thread|receive-antennas-below-30mhz.213|236246-apex-radio-303wa-2-antenna.html|Apex Radio 303WA-2 Antenna}}
+* [https://moonrakeronline.com/x1-hf-vertical-1-50-mhz-trapped-coil-receiving-antenna?___store=default Moonraker X1-HF Vertical]
@@ Line 97: / Line 98: @@
 * [http://www.lowbander.com/ Lowbander.com]
 ** Look at the bottom of the page
-* [https://moonrakeronline.com/x1-hf-vertical-1-50-mhz-trapped-coil-receiving-antenna?___store=default Moonraker X1-HF Vertical]
 * [http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/sw_ant.html Universal Radio SW/MW Antennas]
 * [http://www.vibroplex.com/contents/en-us/p3415.html Vibroplex PAR EF-SWL Antenna]