After the success of the 2m J-Pole antenna I thought I'd have a go at something a little different.
I had pretty much ignored the airband frequencies since I started listening as an SWL. But recently I became interested simply because there's always something to listen to. That and the fact that local airports give out barometric readings as well as wind information, so they're useful for weather reports.
With this in mind I decided to build an experimental antenna. The one you can see above.
It all started with a scavenged probe from work. The piece of equipment didn't function so I grabbed the probe part which came with a fine copper tube coil attached. The probe is the vertical part sticking out of the loop. Apart from that oddity it's an AM loop but roughly tuned for the airband on VHF frequencies. The whole thing is hot glued together with overflow pipe which is very cheap. I added a ground plane because the signals are coming from above.
It's mounted a bit close to the back of the house but it does work.
Yes, my experimental airband antenna works really well with lots of nice clear signals coming into my Realistic Pro-2006 scanner.
I'm going to re-program the scanner this week because as well as found frequencies I've discovered a lot more on line.
It's been another good radio weekend.
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