I have looked through many resources and calculators to find out how long my AM radio receiver antenna wire needs to be and I am confused at the conflicting information I am getting. Notably, I have used the following calculators (see below), on top of my own calculations and they do not match.
1. http://www.qsl.net/w4sat/velfact.htm
2. http://www.angelfire.com/mb/amandx/loop.html
My goal is to build an antenna for receiving in and around the 570kHz frequency. Now I've read that 1/4 wavelength will give me a good gain. So I calculated that I need (c/570kHz = 526m * 1/4 = 131.5m) 131.5m of wire. Though I see a lot of examples on the internet where they definitely do not have that much wire. Am I missing something? Is there a better fraction that will still give me a good gain but a much smaller antenna size?
1. http://www.qsl.net/w4sat/velfact.htm
2. http://www.angelfire.com/mb/amandx/loop.html
My goal is to build an antenna for receiving in and around the 570kHz frequency. Now I've read that 1/4 wavelength will give me a good gain. So I calculated that I need (c/570kHz = 526m * 1/4 = 131.5m) 131.5m of wire. Though I see a lot of examples on the internet where they definitely do not have that much wire. Am I missing something? Is there a better fraction that will still give me a good gain but a much smaller antenna size?