A spring is in the air

[Farty]

Slowly sorting things out with my gear now we're settled in the new house.

One of the things I wanted sorting sharpish was an antenna for SWL'ing. However, I want to minimise the visual impact of any antennas so want to keep as much as possible concealed within the voluminous loft space, insofar as it doesn't unreasonably hinder performance.

Reading round the subject I came across the idea of using a slinky spring as a compact antenna for HF. Not so good for transmitting, but eminently suited for receiving it would seem.

So I bought a slinky, 67 feet of coiled steel wire stretched out along the ridge of my loft with a steing in the middle tomsupportmit along its length. It is fed by a 10m cable, essentially making it a 100ft long inverted L antenna.

After an initial 2 evenings use on my Realistic and Tecsun radios I can confirm that it works extremely well indeed. Madagascar, South America and Canadian broadcast statiobs received with ease and little real effort on nights that were relatively flat.

So it you're after a low cost and relatively compact antenna I can recommend using a slinky.

[Buick Mackane]

Shouldn't that be a ''Stinky'' given your username ? Jokes are crap but they're free Glad it's doing what you need it too do

[Farty]

The Stinky Slinky. That could catch on.

[scanhermit]

Is that a Tecsun S-2000 or a humble PL-660?

[Farty]

A humble PL-660.