Shortwave Receiving Antenna Designs and Projects
Find plans and information for building and optimizing shortwave antennas for improved reception across various bands.
Shortwave listening (SWL) and amateur radio activity on the lower bands often rely on specialized receiving antennas. Unlike transmitting antennas, SWL antennas are designed purely for reception, aiming to pull in weak signals across a wide frequency range without needing to handle high power. Operators often experiment with various designs to minimize local noise and maximize signal-to-noise ratio for distant stations.
This category offers many antenna projects for shortwave listeners and hams, from simple longwire antennas covering 530 kHz to 30 MHz, to more complex designs like the Hula Loop and the Carpet Loop for indoor use. You will find detailed plans for magnetic loop antennas, such as the KR1ST design, and information on directional arrays like Beverage antennas and Echelon-Log Beverages, which are popular for improving reception on the low bands like 160m and 80m.
Sort:
-
N3OX 80m/160m rx loop -
A well documented plan to build a magnetic loop antenna for Shortwave Listening, includes photos and diagrams. -
Low noise, receive only coax loop antennas for 160 - 10 meters HF bands -
Author evaluated a custom-built passive AM loop antenna, achieving notable DX reception including KLBJ Austin (230 miles) and WWL New Orleans (700 miles). The antenna operates solely on resonant inductive coupling, enhancing weak signal reception without external amplification. This project illustrates how fundamental RF design—calculating inductance, capacitance, and Q factor—can significantly boost performance of consumer-grade radios. Detailed construction techniques, theoretical background, and optimization strategies for effective loop antenna design are presented for amateur and experimental use. -
The longwire antenna is a very effective antenna for the listener who wants to cover all of the shortwave bands from 530 KHZ to 30 MHZ.a -
Long Waves, Short Antennas, designing antennas for MF and LF communications -
Schema of a self made balun used to match randmon wire antennas, mainly for shortwave listening pourposes, in italian -
The Beverage antenna was invented in the early 1920s by Dr. Harold H. Beverage -
This article addresses the subject of obtaining the best signal transfer from an antenna to the typical 50-ohm receiver input over a wide frequency range, with emphasis on medium-wave (500 - 2000 kHz), encompassing the standard AM broadcast band and the 160-m amateur band. -
The dipole antenna is an easily designed and made antenna usually used on HF, although can be (and sometimes is) made for VHF and UHF antennas, and in varying forms is also used as part of different designs of antennas i.e. as the driven element for directional antennas. -
One of the most asked questions when it comes to antennas is what kind of wire should I use -
A receiving loop antenna project suitable for 150-430 KHz reception by Gregg van der Sluys -
N2DS home made loop page collection. -
About beverage antennas, Enhanced F/B Beverages, Bandwidth of Directivity, arrays. This article describes two phasing systems for Beverage antennas that improve directivity and cancel rearward signals. These systems use lossy elements and require minimal components to achieve broadband performance. -
Guidelines to groundings. -
The HarRe antenna series, multi element quarter wave resonant broadcaters band receiving antenna -
Magnetic Loop antenna for broadcasts band reception -
How can you vastly improve your Medium Wave reception? its quite simple really, all you need is 120 foot of wire, a few lengths of timber and an old tuning capacitor with which you can build the answer to every DX'ers prayers, a tuned loop antenna. -
The ever-popular inverted L antnna, a fast to implement and setup shortwave antenna project by Arnie Coro C02KK -
Wound on a 3 foot length of PVC pipe, the long loopstick antenna was an experiment to try to improve AM radio reception without using a long wire or ground. -
basic notes on building longwire antennas for medium waves -
Instructions for Putting up a Long-Wire Antenna -
Reducing noise to your antenna can gain your aerial performance, learn how. -
VA3STL experience on reorganizing his shack and setting up a new random lenght wire antenna for his Yaesu FRG-7 receiver -
Learn basic theory on antennas, and notes on homebrewing efficient shortwave antennas -
K9AY loop antenna installed at PA6Z Contest group. This is a receiving antennas for the low bands (160m, 80m and 40m). Include schematics and info on a building the control box, preamplifier and low-pass filter -
Cancelling out unwanted noise sources by DL3FP -
Rhombic antenna for shortwave radio broadcasting, general description and radiation patterns -
How to build a roofspace antennas and get them to work. Explains how to build an effective antenna in your roof. Very interesting if you don't have possibilities to setup an antenna in your roof. -
Schematics, mechanical drawings and picture of a Receiving loop antenna by N5ESE - N5FC -
How slinky loaded beverage antennas works, includes eznec models -
Slinky Antenna Basics, clandestine dipole -
Article about magnetic loops, construction notes and diagrams -
Alan yates vk2zay's ham radio website, homebrew construction, general electronics, high voltage experiments, amateur rocketry, and general geek stuff -
Short guide to home made antennas for shortwave reception, in pdf format -
The terminated tilted, folded dipole T2FD is a little known antenna that performs excellently. Compact in size compared to a half-wave dipole the T2FD provides signal gain, wide frequency coverage, and exceptionally low noise characteristics. -
High performance indoor shortwave antenna, the Carpet Loop II is an ideal step upward for the listener who wants something better than a random wire but doesn't want the expensive dice roll of an active antenna. -
AM loop antenna for 75/80 meters band -
Contruction notes of an Umbrella Loop antenna for AM shortwave listenings -
A quick and easy to build loop antenna for shortwave listeining can tune from 5 to 18 Mhz -
This active antenna for the shortwave band provides surprising performance, even indoors. As the name implies, the main loop is made from a Hula-Hoop with the metallic paint stripped off and a single turn of 14AWG copper wire inserted inside the hoop. -
Using the T2FD antenna for shortwave listening by AB1KW -
An antenna for shortwave radio broadcasting consisting of rows and columns of dipoles, is a high gain directional antenna, designed for medium and long range communications. -
A dual band X-frame wire antenna made using 4 turns for response down to 3 MHz or so, and 2 turns (switched) for response up to around 18 MHz. The loop configurations are tuned using common eBay 365 pF tuning caps. -
A ferrite antenna for Low Freqencies -
Ferrite rod antenna or aerial, a form of RF antenna that is widely used in RFID and transistor radio applications. -
An Active antenna designed for VLF and shortwave radio reception. A small antenna capable of excellent performances on low bands, made on a copper plate and introductio to active antennas. -
Introduction to Shortwave Antennas. Understanding Shortwave Radio Listening and Antenna Design and Construction -
a methodology for connecting multiple LF/MF/HF receivers to a single antenna via readily available and inexpensive 75-ohm TV cable. -
Basic of shortwave antennas