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Thanks for the great video. So my Im a part time commercial pilot, full time comms n/w engineer, & aircraft spotter & enthusiasts as well as an Amateur, SWL & all round radio & communications enthusiast. At the moment I run a commercial 3dB RFI Wireless Aviation vertical antenna connected to a dedicated aviation scanner & was looking to purchase a 2nd 3dB RFI Wireless Aviation vertical antenna toconnect to a dedicated scanner just to do VHF acars & are wondering if you have tested your flower pot antenna against any commercially made aviation antennas to see how they stack up like for like from a reception point of view. Whilst I live a fair way from my 2 Airports ( Melbourne International " YMML " & Essendon G.A. & Corporate " YMEN " I am on the flight path to both & can receive a couple of tje frequencies simplex direct from the airports. 99% of airport tower / control comms that I receive are from "rebroadcast" towers situated on very high peaks within 50km's of my location. Using your video I might make one of these soon & do my own head to head. I agree with an earlier poster, a discone is absolutely no match for a "dedicated" aviation vertical antenna Keep up the great work. Rgs Wayne VK3ECS.

Hi Ray, hope you are good. 10 years later from you making this video and hardly anything left to listen to on MW, Caroline and BBC Radio Derby are about the only things I pick up regularly. On a clear day I can sometimes hear BBC Radio Wales or Norfolk, the rest are Sports programmes or Asian community stations. Anyway, I’m thinking of getting one of these or something similar, I like the warm sound of AM through an old radio. Really struggle to listen to DAB, perhaps it’s too clean for my ears haha. All the best, 73 Frank.

That's really cool 1985 shooting star I'll be working on my beam and putting it up in the air next week what are my new coax and get my radio back up in the line yeehaw

I don't know if I can post links here, but I was just searching for something and came across a BBC News article. Try searching for "BBC News Long wave radio fans mourn fading frequencies" - the first picture includes a FRG-7.

I just checked out your website and confirmed what I thought I saw. That CR100 was my first receiver. I bought it at the grand age of fourteen (I am now seventy three) and transported it home in a wheelbarrow. I was a member of the local radio club so the next issue of the club news mentioned that young Dave had been seen going mobile in. a wheelbarrow. I moved from Ashford Middlesex (now Surrey) to the US where I now hold the callsign N2SN. How's that for a CW callsign? I got to choose it after I upgraded my license after passing my extra class theory and 20WPM morse code test. I now live in sunny Florida USA. Hopefully we will meet on the air one day,. All the very best, Dave, N2SN.

Ray that is as kool as the north pole lol

I'm just trying to understand why your frequency display says "27.395" and the channel says "38" at the same time. 38 is 27.385 there, isn't it?

I like your video and watched it a few times now. Have you ever seen how it is in regards to noise when you use the 6v DC adapter, or do you just use batteries? I imagine it might introduce a lot of RF as my Tecsun PL660 is extremely noisy on the adapter, so it is a batteries-only operation. Cheers. 73 Adam

I understand the nostalgia the magic nights of the past but sadly Short Wave listening is long gone dead as a dodo bird the frequencies are dead places with a few zombies around .Everybody abandoned ship only the lonely ghosts remain.

Hi Ray, yes, the price of leader tape, on Ebay, is absolutely ridiculous. Fortunately, I bought some old NAB reels, off Ebay, and one reel contained a long run of leader tape.

Is this antenna safe from lightning? Compare to other antennas?

Yep I started with AM. until the Kids came on FM. Then the interest died and all my Good Buddies packed it in too.

You can buy AA to D cell adapters (some are even 3 AA in parallel to D (don't buy the ones in series unless you want triple voltage and sellers are sometimes not clear or mixed up the products) and then you can use AA NiMH cells in them. That's what I do now and no more buying alkaline D cells anymore. Thanks for your video. 73

I have a Grundig Satellit 2000 from 1975, S350, Icom R8500, RSP1a, MSi.SDR, RTL-SDR V4 (and V2 also), Belka DX, XHDATA D-808, R-108, D-109, and a few other portable receivers, mid or small size that can RX SW. Also own many HF capable transceivers with general coverage receivers.

Mr Ray, are you in London?? I would like to take a radio for inspection...

Mr Ray, are you in London?? I would like to take a radio for inspection...

Hi Ray, i have been told you shouldn't use Black plastic tubing for aerials, you should use white, because the black has got something in it that effexts RF, ideally though fibred glass tube is best...that's just what i have been told Ray...take it or leave it hi...from Fred in Essex g4vvq.

Kool - cheers from the U.A.E. Ray, keep well.

Sounds like a drum solo.

Hi Ray. In the late 60s i left school and went straight to the National Sea Training School in Gravesend where i trained as deck hand. My first Ship was a Collier running coal from Blyth on the Northeast coast to power stations on the Thames. One of my fondest memories was seeing the local fishing Cobel's coming and going in the North sea. The sound of their Lister engines was unmistakable. At night you could hear them miles away. Very calming. Happy days.

John Deere tractor co made an engine sounds like that, it’s nick name was POPPIN JACK. or POPPIN JOHN 😂👋 my dad’s friend had one , I’ll never forget that sound

Sounds really good Ray

Great video Ray, but I was a little disappointed to see the splash screen say "start up" yet the whole video she's running. At least you didn't dress it in a bikini to get the hit rate up like so many You Tubers do ;-)

Maybe it will get connected up to power a valve radio this year.....? Better be quick before Droitwich closes - if it hasn't already!

Got one in bits in the garage, took it apart years ago as it would not start when i bought it. strange as it was listed as a runner but the coil in the mag was open circuit. i expect they might have swapped the mag with a friends duff one before i picked it up. Flywheel has been in the bench vice for about 8 years now as i can't get the woodruff key out seems to have cold welded itself in. One day I'll have another go at getting it running. Mags are too expensive on fleabay to get a replacement, so maybe i'll try and rewind my own coil. Got nice wheels for a trolly when it gets finished and a very nice water pump to go with it. Nice to see yours running.

Sweet as a nut for an old lister..thanks

ha Ha .... I was tapping my foot in time with the Lister !

Good idea with the square section belt on the idler…I have somewhere a Sony R to R to finish which has noisy idlers I’ll give that a try, as for these capacitors most of the old ones are still better than some of the modern ones today even after 50yrs.

What is it with us old HF plonkers and the attraction to steam engines? One in the same I suppose. 🧐

Just a thought, will that engine run off waste vegetable oil, guessing that the oil would have to be warmed up to make it less viscous.

Don't ask me why but I have always wanted to own a stationery engine. Nice one Ray.

The reason for the channel frequencies ending .125 eg 27.60125 was supposedly an attempt to reduce the chance of interference to legitimate vhf services due to harmonics from the frequently, Mr screwdriver tweaked 11 meter sets. It was in theory a good idea, though it was also very annoying to the CB users who wanted international compatibility. I suppose you could say it fulfilled two purposes. I love your content by the way! (Chris from the guys of 1977khz am)

FREEEEDOOOOOMMMM ! !

Nice little video. Many of us amateurs came from CB, and I still have affection for it even though I’ve not transmitted there since the 80s. At the time of writing in late May 24 the sporadic E season is upon us. You would expect the 10m amateur band to be buzzing when the MuF is high enough, yet it is often really quiet. Meanwhile on 11m the bands are packed, SSB, AM and FM. Casual “lingo” chats, and DXers with as much professionalism as on the amateur bands, with a sprinkling of American truckers with massive echo and of course, roger bleeps. The amount of activity, and the variety of it, does tempt me back! Thanks for a good balanced video anyway. 73, M0EUK

Ray, what a cracking video! I don’t know if you realise how good it is, this video should be used in the uk foundation course. Please keep up the videos really appreciate it, thank you for passing on the knowledge. ps all your videos are great and your a natural at them and funny 12.10 the neighbours house gag brilliant

Great Video once again Ray! I hope morse code never goes away, i would even do it if it becomes banned from the airwaves! New Keys and Paddles are so expensive these days!

Hi Ray, firstly a big thank you for ALL your presentations in particular this type of vertical dipole. I have a large amount of low loss satellite 75 ohm coaxial cable so decided to build a VHF 2 M version using the online calculator. To cut a very long story short and having used an awful lot of electrical tape in testing I can confirm that the online calculator is perfectly fine for the top and bottom measurements of the coax but the length for the RF choke has to be considerably longer at 132 cms which gives around a 1.2:1 SWR across the entire 2 M band. I'm awaiting a VNA analyser in the next week or two so hopefully will be able to give more information on its bandwidth. Cheers and 73's

Great job Ray just what I need

I make flower pot antenna , 2017, for 145Mhz So I chose version single ⅝ and fit cable on bamboo stick and work.

Thank you very much !

100 Khz is LORAN. I guess it's not dead yet!

Hi Ray, thanks for the video and how did it turn out when finished? I'm just about to do a similar exercise. Out of my front room window (I have a bungalow) up to the roof ridge and down the garden 80 metres. I could go longer like 120 metres... would there be a benefit please?

Hi, when you say the inner is the top half, and the outer is the bottom half - how can you have a top and bottom half when you’ve cut the braiding off ? You just have a centre core going up the conduitI. I’ve seen other videos where the centre core was 23 inches long, and the braiding was also 23 inches long. The braiding was separated from around the centre core ( not cut off ) and twisted and the antenna ended up like a T shape, with the upright of the ‘T’ being the coax going back to the receiver. So a hole would have been made half way up the conduit, and the centre core fed up one way, and the twisted braiding fed down the other way. Like your relaxed style of presenting, but cannot get how you describe top and bottom when you only use one whole centre core.

Hi Ray, thanks for sharing this interesting video. My dad used to prefer reel to reel tape recorders, though over the years, they became unusable. Thanks to a friend, I was able to record the old recordings all to cassette tape, as the tapes were literally on their last legs. My dad to save money, used to record over his tapes several times, which later caused them to become very work and brittle. Fortunately, I was able to save at least the last recordings intact and later we wiped the material from the original tapes before disposing of them. The cassette copies actually play quite well. Obtaining replacement parts for tape recorders, including cassette recorders is becoming very difficult, with the later radio cassette recorders being the hardest. I had two Panasonic radio cassette recorders in that situation and ended up donating them to our local repair shop for spare parts. I still have other tape recorders that play and record okay. Anyway, take care and all the best. Rob in Melbourne Australia.

Awesome story!

Lovely job, Ray. Tape machines have played a big part in my life. Funny to think Big Data and the 'Cloud' still rely heavily on tape, isn't ??

The EU didn't come into effect until the Maastricht Treaty of 1991. CB AM UK pirates is somewhat earlier - as was legal FM. Leaver or Remainer, we ought to understand what happened in 2016.

In the 70s I could only dream about owning a tape recorder of that quality de Mike G4VQH

ha! I know how Repeaters work also, but your channel is so much fun to watch! I'm watching it Guvna' 😆

Thank you so much for helping me begin to learn why a half-wave length of wire (on a transmitter) can be set up so much more efficiently. Like other people who have already posted, I never understood this concept until you drew it on the blackboard! Thanks so much for this!