DIY AM Loop Antenna

[@zandig666]

Thx bro I remember scrolling through radio as a kid consequently being amazed I'm grabbing signals hundreds of miles away 😂😂😂

[@NobleEndeavours123]

Hi Brandon! When I was a kid I used to help my dad when he was crafting his own antennas for amateur radio so this is almost like a flash to the past for me! I helped but I was strictly holding things while he did the magic. The only thing I can think of trying is to remove the insulator shell that is around the wire. I can't remember ever seeing any of his antennas with any form of shielding on the cable. He did have something called an "eggshell" insulator that kept the antenna isolated from the tie down points. Keep in mind his antennas were sometimes up to 500 feet long and were used for amateur radio which are in different frequencies then what you are trying. Thanks again for sharing and good luck!

[@brandonhayes9226]

Thanks for the tips Jamie. When I read the instructions, it said a minimum of 25m of any old wire. But you are right, most of the videos I have watched on antennas and amateur radio use a bare wire. I don't have any at the moment and my choice was based on it was $3 for a broken spool of aluminum wire, not necessarily the perfect choice. It took me hours to unwind that mess.

[@NobleEndeavours123]

@@brandonhayes9226 I think the purpose of the shielding is to isolate the bare wire from coming into contact with other stuff. If it's a power cable then it would protect against shock or fire if someone/something touched the bare wire. I suspect in this case it prevents the shielded parts of the cable from acting as an antenna. The other thing that occurred to me is the possibility that you need to wind the cable in a specific direction. An old transistor radio DIY set I had when I was a kid had us wrap the antenna coil a certain way - I think it had to do with magnetic fields or something so if that could also be something to consider. Unfortunately not my area of expertise so i am purely speculating here. If it was me I would strip the shielding off the cable and try it again.

[@baneverything5580]

Nearly 3 decades ago I made 80-100 turn coils on everything from paper towel tubes to vitamin bottles and connected an aprox 300 ft insulated wire to each end. The wires were draped over lower tree limbs and bushes in opposite directions. We normally got three AM stations during the day where I was at the top of Toledo Bend Lake in NW Louisiana but I got at least 50 by placing this coil near my radios. I could hear Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, and even Oklahoma City during the day loud and clear. It`s a great way to get more stations during the day when local options are bad.

[@billhennessy5118]

Looks like the problem is with the capacitor. You don't have enough capacitance. You need 300 to 500 pf. Also try grounding one end of the capacitor and see if that helps. You can buy some tuning capacitors online of about 360 pf. Ground the front end or the frame of it and connect one of the coil wires to it. Connect the other end to the stator, and see if that works.

[@lectrikdog]

if you connect one end of the LC ckt to Gnd, you should add a long wire to the other end of the coil, that may help, but typically tunable loops are isolated, that's why it's called a loop, it's a closed ckt unto itself

[@baneverything5580]

I found some 365 & 450 pf tuning capacitors online and got two of the latter and one of the other, a couple of larger spools of 22-24 AWG magnet wire, and a couple of bags of connecting wires with alligator clips on the end to make it very fast and simple to experiment with coils. About 17 turns of magnet wire on a 16 inch pizza box using both gangs of the 450 pf tuner is just about perfect for the entire AM broadcast band. I think I did 16 turns and needed one more to reach 500 khz. It did reach 540, our lowest fringe daytime station, but barely. My homemade loop blows away the AN-200 one they sell. I was really surpised by its performance. I have several large flat boxes solar panels came in and plan to figure out how to turn those into loops. My first try with a 4 ft box only tuned below 1200 khz but I was able to pull in New Orleans WWL 870 like a local during the day at 170 miles away and got a faint signal from Dallas 820 WBAP. That`s VERY far from my location here just above Alexandria, La. Try the AN-200 with a direct connection to the antenna port of the Tecsun PL-330. It can be set to use with external AM antennas by pressing and holding the NO. 3 button. GREAT little receiver for doing AM antenna experiments and it`s all someone needs for super AM DXing. It has a cleaner, stronger signal on most stations at night than my CCrane EP PRO or Sangean PR-D4W which are two of the best stock AM receivers made today.

[@toml.8210]

That's aluminum foil; tin foil is no longer commonly available.

[@brandonhayes9226]

You are correct. I misspoke using the slang term for aluminum foil. Thank you for the correction.