Long wire (your first antenna)

In this article I will go over the basics to getting your first "long wire" antenna up and running.

You will need:

• A long wire (around 7-10 m minimum)
• Alligator clip (not absolutely necessary)
• Space

Ok the first thing you will need to do is find a suitable place for you wire. You want it to be as far from any houses or electrical equipment and as high as you can get it. Obviously both are not always possible but try to either get it high or far away. I personally have my 30 metre wire over the roof of my house and the reception is far superior to the built-in telescopic antenna that my small radio came with.

Getting it up

I personally have a one story extension on my house with a flat roof so getting onto my main roof is fairly easy but not everyone has this so my best advice would be (if you are putting the wire over your roof) to tie the end of the wire to something with a little bit of weight (a small half full water bottle is great) and throw it over the roof while holding onto on end to as it doesnt completely clear the roof (I found this out the hard way! and nearly broke my car windscreen...). If possible tie the far end of the wire to something to stop it flying away on a windy day. If not possible then make sure what ever you tie to the end it heavy enough and then tie the close end to something before attaching it to you radio.

If going for the high approach trees are your best friend. I also have a long wire going round the perimetre of my garden on top of the trees (which I am lucky enough to have all the way around my garden). This, admittedly, took a long time as i had to get a ladder and go up each tree to secure it. If you arent lucky enough to have lots of trees, fences work fine too (if not a little neater looking). Use a staple gun to secure it around the fence. Remember make is as long a possible!

Connecting it to your radio

When connecting it to your radio you have two options. Wiring and soldering it to a coax or jack lead or simply attaching it to your built-in antenna. I personally chose the latter of the two as you can have more than one wired up at once without an antenna switcher or splicing the wires together.

Ok so here I will cover attaching your new antenna to your built-in antenna. You again have two options here, either using an alligator clip or not... personally I dont but you may wish to. This bit couldnt get any simpler! You simply either attach the wire to the clip and clip it to the antenna or just wrap a bit of the antenna (bare wire) around the built in one! EASY!

You will now have a perfect first antenna! If you wish to learn how to build a more advanced antenna please keep an eye out for our forthcomimg "dipole", "discone" and "loop" antenna building guides.

Written by Bowen edited by Xkitteh