Okay, so I saw this “egg beater antenna” thing online and thought, “Hey, that looks kinda cool, and maybe I can actually make one!” I’m always up for a little DIY project, especially if it involves tinkering with radios and signals.
First, I had to gather some stuff. I didn’t want to buy anything fancy, so I just looked around the house. I found some:
- Old wire coat hangers (the metal kind, not the plastic ones!)
- Some scrap wood for a base
- A random piece of PVC pipe I had lying around
- Screws and nuts, some of them rusted.
- My trusty old soldering iron and some solder
The Build (and the Mishaps)
I started by straightening out the coat hangers. This was tougher than I thought! Those things are pretty sturdy. I used pliers and a hammer, and managed to get them reasonably straight, with some bumps.
Next, I had to bend the wires into loops. The idea is to make two loops that are kind of perpendicular to each other. I eyeballed it, and ended up using a can as a template for the loops, it worked okay.
Then came the tricky part – attaching the loops to the PVC pipe. I drilled some holes in the pipe, but it split a little. Oops. I made new holes, and finally, I was able to screw the wire loops onto the pipe, but not really stable.
I used the scrap wood to make a simple base. I just screwed the PVC pipe onto the wood. It wasn’t pretty, but it stood up, more or less.
Now for the soldering. I’m not the best at soldering, I connected the feedline to those loops at a point. It was messy, but I think I got a good connection… I hope.
Testing, Testing…
I hooked up the antenna to my radio, I didn’t really expect much. I mean, it’s made of coat hangers and scrap wood! But guess what? I actually started picking up some signals! It wasn’t perfect, but it was definitely working. I was surprised, to be honest.I turned the radio knob, and boom, the sound of signals.
I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to fine-tune it, moving it around, adjusting the wires. I managed to get a few more stations, and the signal was clearer on some of them. It’s not going to replace a professional antenna, but for something I made from junk, it’s pretty darn good.
So, yeah, that’s my egg beater antenna story. It was a fun little project, and I learned a thing or two. It’s definitely not perfect, but it proves that you can sometimes make cool stuff from things you have lying around the house. Plus, it gave me an excuse to play with my radio!
