I made a new year’s resolution to put up an outdoor antenna in 2025 and this article will chronicle the progress.
Previously I had an MLA-30+ on a balcony, but it was in an inconvenient location for where I really wanted to listen to radio, so I took it down. I have a 20-foot wire up a tree, but I have to go outside to connect to it, and the weather is turning cold. I don’t want to stumble down the sloping outdoor stairs to get to it in the dark and it’s not any fun in the rain.
So, the general plan is to put up a straight long wire antenna from a tree to the house, around 25 feet long. There will be an earth ground and a 9:1 balun for impedance matching, plus a lightning arrester. Shielded cable will run from the balun to a window where I’ll use one of those under window antenna strips to get in inside. Everything will be shielded between the wire and a connected radio.
This article will be updated with progress. Maybe it will get finished before the ATS-25 MAX Decoder radio arrives.
Post 1, January 2, 2025
First thing I did was to take inventory, and I decided I didn’t have enough wire for the antenna, so I ordered some from Amazon (nothing on local Ace Hardware website);
I decided on 20 gauge wire for no particular reason, except it didn’t seem too big and didn’t seem too small.
The second question is whether to use a balun, an impedance matching transformer. One typically uses a 9:1 balun matching a long wire to 50 ohm coaxial cable. The problem here is whether the portable shortwave radios I use have 50 ohm inputs. This question will be resolved by experimenting with my current wire up a tree antenna to see whether the antenna works better with or without. That signal strength value on the display will finally be good for something. I’ll also try several radios to see if that makes a difference.
The third question is whether to really add a lightning arrester. I have one, but it will be a little awkward in my design, and I don’t intend to leave radios plugged into the antenna when I’m not using them.
The last piece of equipment I will probably get is a spring. The tree is pretty strong, but it still might sway in a strong wind and I don’t want to snap the antenna.