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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 มิ.ย. 2024
- One of the easiest and very effective ways to improve your shortwave radio reception significantly is by using a simple wire antenna. You can make it yourself. It works well on some smaller radios like the Retekess V115, which has a very poor built-in antenna, but copes really well with a wire antenna. This video is aimed particularly at beginners.
I have received several requests from viewers asking me how to use a wire as an antenna. The answer is in this video! I also show you how effective it can be by comparing reception on the Retekess V115 of NHK Japan 11815 kHz, and All India Radio , with and without the wire.
Just remember one thing, NEVER use a wire outside when it is stormy, particularly if you live in an area with many electrical storms, like where I live. It is very dangerous to use the wire outside when there is a thunderstorm.
00:00 Introduction
00:57 What you need
01:35 What length of wire to use
02:14 Expose a bit wire to twist around your antenna
03:20 Make sure end of wire is insulated
04:05 NHK 11815 kHz on the Rekess V115 with and without the wire
05:34 All India Radio 15030 kHz on the Retekess V115 with and without the wire
07:23 Final words - บันเทิง
A few decades ago, we had a "wire" clothes line in our backyard. And we just put the metal dipole antenna of the radio into direct contact with our clothes line and "Presto"!
It gave us great reception!
Yes, that is a very good trick! Some people also use wire fences as antennas, apparently it can work very well.
Even when I take a walk through the forest behind my home, it’s good to carry a little bag with a length of wire that can either plug into the radio itself or clip to an antenna itself. Bag would contain the wire and radio as a travel bag for the radio. With my XHData or Tecsun. Works wonderfully! A super long length of wire wrapped around the radio itself and then sent for a long run makes a great MW antenna! A shorter length connected directly with the radio some way helps the shortwave and FM. Because the MW wavelength is so long. Doing different things with the wire helps different frequency ranges. I super enjoy your channel and recommend it to anyone.
Thanks for the tip about the MW antenna, I never thought of that! And thank you so much for your comments about my channel. Highly appreciated!
Thanks for making this video love from India
Thanks for your comment! I appreciate your support!
I find with my 45 feet into a tree tends to overload my portables. It works well to leave the receiver end of the wire with the insulation still on. Loosely couple (inductive) to the whip by just wrapping a couple of turns of the insulated wire around the whip. This works well on all my portables. 😀
Thank you for the suggestion Rob! This seems to be a great solution if you find that your portable overloads with a wire when you connect the exposed receiving end of the wire directly to the antenna.
I have a 30 foot wire strung from a wooden mast in the garden which works well for most portables but with the XHDATA D-219 even wrapping a couple of insulated turns around the whip as you suggest is too much for it. It overloads badly and suffers breakthrough from strong stations and a local high power medium wave station. I find that just placing the radio no closer than 3 inches to the wire is enough to improve reception a lot without driving it into overload. Either that or I hang a portable wire antenna from a different radio from a curtain rail indoors and only extend it about 6 feet. This is then plugged into an inductive coupler and slipped over the whip. This also dramatically improves reception of weak SW stations without being overloaded by strong stations on other frequencies.
@@NJT1000 Yep A lot of cheaper pure DSP receivers are very prone to strong signal overload. Broadband input with no filters. What you are doing is spot on. Have to experiment. I sometimes use a shorter wire or just place the rx near the lead.
Thanks, I have both the same radios and just purchased speaker wire myself...will try it at night and not expecting much myself because of the cheap radios, but having fun trying ..
Both are awesome for the price and provide good FM listening
I think you might be surprised with the Retekess V115, it really surprised me! Works very well with the wire. The D-219 not so much, but maybe with a shorter wire it might also work. Some radios, like the V115, seem to be able to handle the strong signals coming in through the long wire very well. Others overload and just become noisy, like the D-219. I do also like both these radios, the D-219 is great for shortwave with only its built-in antenna. And the Retekess has great sound for FM and MP3 listening.
Thank you for your experience!
Will have fun experimenting with both!
These cheap radios are awesome for the price and imagine sometimes it's the lot production on the quality for the end product.
Doesn't matter as long as I can listen to my stations on FM.
Also bought a Kaito 369 emergency radio which is very good along with a Audiocrazy AMFM retro mini that is very good too.
Got to stop now with the radios...think this is enough.
Will subscribe ...👍
@@vincentkosik403 I think one can never have enough radios 😀 It becomes something of an obsession for some of us. I recently bought a Tivoli Model One BT, which I mostly use for FM and Bluetooth streaming. Terrific sound from that one. It was a bit of a splurge for me, a radio I had always wanted, so I saved up over time until I could get one. Definitely one purchase that I don't regret at all! But, actually, I haven't regretted any of my radio purchases, they all have their uses!
@@swlistening Did the same with film cameras .....it's just for fun...
@@rajeshkrdubey It might be that the wire picks up too much electrical interference in your area or overloads the radio. The D-219 needs a very short wire, it does not work so nicely with a long wire.
I have a 10 metre wire strung from a mast in my garden. It works well with my vintage Sony ICF-7600DS and XHDATA D-808. However with the D219 it makes reception worse as it suffers badly from overloading and the extra gain completely overwhelms the front end which goes deaf. It also suffers breakthrough from a strong local medium wave transmitter and other strong SW stations with the wire attached, making it difficult to hear the actual station I am trying to tune in. I have found that the D-219 works best with 2 metres of wire indoors hung from a curtain rail. This gives a useful boost on weak SW stations without overloading it.
It looks like it's worth experimenting with wire antenna configurations depending on the receiver.
The D-219 seems to be very sensitive on short wave. I have a recording of it's performance compared with the Sony and D-808 receiving Radio New Zealand International which is as far distant a station I can receive here in the UK (18730 km). The D-219 is the clear winner. I must have a go at editing and uploading it.
I agree with you about the D-219 and a long wire. As my video also shows, it just does not seem to manage with a 10 metre wire. But it remains a very sensitive little radio, just with its own built-in antenna. Like you, I have managed to pick up some really distant signals with my D-219, including WWVH. That is the most distant signal I can get, over 18000 kilometres.
Hi Andre. I have read elsewhere on the internet that the D-219 overloads with a long wire. Have you found that to be the case? I have a Sangean ANT-60 portable antenna which at full extension is 23 feet long. Many thanks for your excellent content.
It is true, if you use a wire that is too long the D-219 does overload, I also experienced it. If I use a wire of about 10 metres (just under 30 feet), it overloads. But I do use a shorter wire, about 3 metres (10 feet) very successfully with the D-219. It is so sensitive anyway that it works quite well without the wire, but on weaker signals the shorter wire works very well.
@@swlistening Thank you for the quick reply. On another note, I see that the D-219 is now available in a 10kHz version for AM.
@@gaoldias That's very interesting to hear! Great news for people in North America.
On the d109 do I use a stereo or mono mini jack for the external antenna. Is that input better than wrapping the extension around the antenna as you show here?
If you have an antenna input port it's better to use that than wrapping around the antenna. But many radios do not have the antenna input port, then it works fine to wrap it around the antenna. On my XHDATA D-808 and D-109 I use the actual antenna input port.
So this can work on any radios. Nice. People use V115s for DXing and that wire can help quite a bit. I will use this with my Sony and my Tecsun when it arrives. I like your toolbox. Where did you get it?
Thanks :-) I got that toolbox as a gift at a Christmas party, where everyone took gifts to share among one another. Like bring one, take one. Long time ago already...
@@swlistening We had a thing in my old school similar to that. We did it from 2019 to 2020. "Previously Loved" was where we would bring things we don't use anymore and just want to give away. I found an old toy of mine and gave it away in exchange for a little radio and calculator (Not sure when it was made) and used it for many years. Unfortunately, the old batteries were left inside and corrosion seeped into the circuitry, so it is unlikely I can fix it, or even get it fixed for that matter.
@@FamtechVideos Sounds like you have always been into radios!
@@swlistening It was an alarm clock as well. I don't know how, but there is this link between me and radios I can't understand.
@@FamtechVideos No need to understand it, just enjoy it 😀
You need an alligator clip for the wire.
It does help, but it also works if you just tie the wire around the antenna. Just as a funny aside, we call them crocodile clips 😀
@@swlistening In the UK we also tend to call them crocodile rather than alligator clips.
Hi! I am writing from India. There is so much fuss being made all over the world over the newly launched XHDATA D219. Other small SW portables have been launched in the past but the XHDATA D219 is hogging immense publicity and interest among both amateur radio enthusiasts AS WELL AS SERIOUS SPECIALIST DX-ers. Please tell me Andre, as an expert - IS THE XHDATA D219 REALLY THAT GOOD A SW RADIO TECHNICALLY AND SW PERFORMANCEWISE?
I think the fuss being made about the D-219 has to do with the incredible value of this radio. It is quite inexpensive, so many people were surprised by the performance of this radio. I really like it, I think it is very sensitive and it seems to pick up SW signals very well. The one flaw, but many DSP-based radios have this, is that there are several peaks of strong stations when you tune. But it locks onto signals really well. The sound is nice for such a small radio, the batteries last a long time, it is very compact and easy to carry around. So there are many good things about this radio. In my opinion there is nothing in the $10 to $30 price range that can compare to this one. It is good.
Just last night I did a comparison on a rare signal, Radio Congo, on the D-219 and the D-109. In this comparison the D-219 clearly outperformed to D-109. You can see here: th-cam.com/video/M74ToBW4Uaw/w-d-xo.html
@@swlistening Thanks a ton, Andre, for reading my query and replying to it at such length. I am well advised now by an expert on the XHDATA D219 and where exactly it scores high, thanks to your domain knowledge, experience and expertise. I have now almost made up my mind to buy this little gem of a radio. I will definitely look up your Radio Congo test review. Thanks again.
@@bhaskarsinha1527 I hope you will like the radio!
Curious to know whether this wire antenna will be strike by lightning?
That is a question that all DXers have :-) The wire is insulated, but there is always a chance of a lightning strike. Best is not to use it when there is an electric storm.
Thank you for your reply.
That means I need to remove the antenna from the radio to avoid damaging it.
@@newstar346 Sure! I don't remove mine when there are storms, I just make sure that it is not connected to the radio. We have very strong electric storms here where I live in Johannesburg. The cable is still fine. It is just a sensible precaution to remove it from the radio and to refrain from using it during a storm.