AM Radio Antenna Using Beverage Cans

by BevCanTech in Circuits > Wireless

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AM Radio Antenna Using Beverage Cans

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The idea to make an AM Radio Antenna came from watching a you tube video and more instructions can be found here. Where a length of wire 20 meters long was strung between a post and a ground stake. A loop of 8 wires from the wire to the ground stake was placed next to an AM radio. The loop of wire apparently induced a better signal into the AM radio.

As I only had a 3 meter length of wire, my plan was to use this to make the loop of 8 wires and attach it to a ground stake. The rest of the antenna would be made from wire extracted from beverage cans.

Lets see if this will work as an AM radio antenna ...

Beverage Can Antenna Wire

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A length of 22 meters 'beer can wire' was made by cutting a narrow strip from a few beer cans and connecting them together. How to do this is covered in this instructable:

Re-purposing Beverage Cans for low voltage wiring

Antenna Wire

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Line was attached to 2 trees and a 22 meter length of wire made from beer cans strung between these trees. Here's how you can make wire from beverage cans:

Grounding Stake

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A wire was attached to one end of the beverage can wire.. On this wire a loop of 8 wires was made and the other end attached to a grounding stake. The grounding stake was made from a 50 cm length of copper pipe banged into the ground.

Bring in the AM Radio

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An AM radio was held next to the wire loop. This is meant to induce a signal from the wire to the radio's internal arial.
So how did this improve reception? Could have been my set up, use of aluminium wire or location but no improvement was observed. When the wire to the earth rod was connected or disconnected a small 'crackle' was heard on the radio - indicating maybe the setup was correct.