Making a Shortwave listening antenna

Baluncore said:

When you are finished, gift it to a mathematical HAM radio operator, one who is interested in antenna design.

I’m hoping that’ll be me one day! But I need to get some builds under my belt, since there’s a big step between reading the ARRL chapter on small loop antennas, and actually building one. Till then, I thought I’d stick fairly closely to your suggestions.

Future projects will include:
- A decent DTV antenna, or at least asking if I can build a better one than is commercially available. It might be that I can’t improve on a bought one, but maybe mass manufacture introduces compromises.

-FM dipole for the workshop radio.

- A loop antenna to put in the window, feedline, then coupling loop to the side of my LW/MW valve radio, which has no provision for an external antenna (and is a series set, so shouldn’t have one). This could be quite tightly tuned to 198kHz LW. By simply placing one hand against the casing, and the other gripping the phone line, I can get an improvement.

Guineafowl said:

A decent DTV antenna, or at least asking if I can build a better one than is commercially available. It might be that I can’t improve on a bought one, but maybe mass manufacture introduces compromises.

That is a good project, if there is a future for DTV.
It is not hard to beat a very-wide-band commercial antenna, if you know which sub-band you are designing for. Design, build and test for a specific transmit site. Give the design to anyone local, who can build and install it.
I designed a 4 element Yagi for DTV, named after the TX site. The antennas are built in a garage, and installed by a new local antenna business. It gets the best results in difficult locations. The antenna is so simple and low cost, that the profit is made when the client/customer/friend pays the installer to solve the problem. You don't need to advertise a good product and service, you need to employ more knowledgeable people to handle the demand, and then diversify.