Author Topic: What are some dos and donts to building an antenna switching box?  (Read 2599 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline raspberrypiTopic starter

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • !
  • Posts: 358
  • Country: us
I have an SDR under my bed that I like to listen to at night, I have three cables coming into the bed room from various locations in the house where the antenna are mounted. I'm kind of bed ridden most night so I want to make a box that can just switch between the long wire SW, the little ADSB dipole under the bed, and the 1m yagi. Best would be have the box mounted to a wall next to the bed. But what kind of switch can handle kHz to 2 Mhz with low noise or dropping db? I know it should be in a metal box. Would a splitter work where you lose 3db on each tap work? or would that create a huge antenna that would just kill the band width of the three antennas? Can you use just a regular three way rotor switch?
I'm legally blind so sometimes I ask obvious questions, but its because I can't see well.
 

Offline vk3yedotcom

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 612
  • Country: au
    • vk3ye dot com (radio articles and projects)
Re: What are some dos and donts to building an antenna switching box?
« Reply #1 on: March 21, 2017, 10:34:51 am »
For VLF through to low VHF, especially for receiving, an ordinary rotary switch would be fine. 

Put in a metal box with antenna sockets screwed to it and use switch to switch between the inner contacts. 

If you don't have a rotary switch you could use two slide switches hooked up in such a way that allows antenna A or a choice of antenna B or C.
NEW! Ham Radio Get Started: Your success in amateur radio. One of 8 ebooks available on amateur radio topics. Details at  https://books.vk3ye.com
 

Offline Chris Wilson

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 1081
  • Country: gb
  • Race car engineer, dog lover, hoarder.
Re: What are some dos and donts to building an antenna switching box?
« Reply #2 on: March 21, 2017, 01:02:50 pm »
I have built a few switches, mechanical rotary and relay based for those low frequencies. Up to 2 MHz is pretty easy and either the commercial boxes with sockets on them, or just a rotary wafer switch with the needed positions should be fine. It's when you get higher in frequency or TX'ing big power through them that it gets a bit more involved. I assume 2MHz isn't a typo, it's with you mentioning a Yagi that I wonder if you also receive on VHF??
Best regards,

                 Chris Wilson.
 

Offline raspberrypiTopic starter

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • !
  • Posts: 358
  • Country: us
Re: What are some dos and donts to building an antenna switching box?
« Reply #3 on: March 26, 2017, 02:32:09 am »
I ment up to 2GHz, thats what the SDR can do...
I'm legally blind so sometimes I ask obvious questions, but its because I can't see well.
 

Offline HowardNamath

  • Newbie
  • Posts: 5
  • Country: us
Re: What are some dos and donts to building an antenna switching box?
« Reply #4 on: March 30, 2017, 03:26:49 pm »
These aren't exactly cheap, but here are a couple of Analog Devices RF switch eval boards that might fit what you're trying to do. You could potentially throw one in a project box with a power source and control switches:

This is a SP3T RF switch that uses a +5V supply (so you could maybe use a filtered USB supply to power it): http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Analog-Devices-Inc/EV1HMC245AQS16/?qs=%2fha2pyFaduihYW547tXjKjpe0RLSci6Qd7qAjm8N21KTMbV%252bVgCTxA%3d%3d

This is a SP4T RF switch that's a bit cheaper (and lower-performing): http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Analog-Devices/EVAL-ADG904EBZ/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMv9Q1JI0Mo%2ftcrEDU6JWfr1
 
The following users thanked this post: raspberrypi


Share me

Digg  Facebook  SlashDot  Delicious  Technorati  Twitter  Google  Yahoo
Smf