Should I use my house as an antenna?

[Andrevich4]

So I was thinking...

I live in an old house that seems to have several generations of mysterious copper wires running through it. I don't know what they were once for but they're just occupying space and they do NOT have electrical current running through them.

I just bought a radio that has an auxilary antenna plug-in. I bought a six foot copper wire antenna that works ok but isn't great. I had ambitions that I'd get VPR from the southern Hudson Valley but that isn't happening.

I got to thinking that maybe I could hook my radio up to the copper wires and those miles of wires would serve as a bigger antenna and I'd get more stations and better reception.

A couple of questions:

1. Would this work?
2. Is this going to kill everyone in the house?
3. Are there any other reasons I should or should not do this?

[David Tollefson]

Your house is a Faraday cage...

[bigbill]

Maybe if you add a rotating magnetic field using a large motor on the roof and several large magnets, you could turn your house into a giant tazer or at least have some wicked static shocks.

[ericpmoss]

[...] some wicked static shocks.

I'm now consumed by an image of a big rubber balloon and arms that rub sheep on it. It could be a coffee deficiency...

[thollandpe]

Ain't gonna work.

I'd been using a design my grandpa showed me to make a 300-ohm T-type FM antenna. I don't know if he was drunk or I misunderstood, but it didn't work.

Recently googled it and made one that worked. The idea is that the lengths of the legs match the size of the wave you're intercepting. Simple and easy once you get the idea and the dimensions.

[j44ke]

My neighbor on the first floor is a ham-nut. He asked me to help him set up an antenna so he could calibrate/tune some ham gizmo he had before he took it upstate. All his ham stuff is up near Germantown, and he has it connected to the Internet so he can use it remotely from the city. Which is good, because after we set up his antenna, a 7 story high circle of copper wire that hung from our rear fire escape, he went down to his apartment to turn on the machine. I went back to my apartment, and when he switched on his machine, this sound like a collision of electronic go-carts came through all our speakers at the volume of 40 trombones. And judging from the sudden presence and confused looks of people on their balconies across the street, they got an earful too. When he came back upstairs to take the wire down, he said well it works.

I bet you have some really old wiring like our house had when I was growing up. It was just bare copper wire run from insulator to insulator. No wonder houses burned down back then. Just takes one well placed mouse. When we first moved in I remember my dad standing in the basement looking up and saying those can't possibly be live. Bzzap!

[SlowPokePete]

Lightning rod?

SPP

[Peter Polack]

The only way to truly find out if this would get VPR into your radio is to try it. There's no harm as there's no voltage on the wires. I see this done a lot in concrete industrial buildings with few windows; somebody connects the radio antenna to the metal conduit sheathing the electrical wiring in an attempt to get better reception. If it didn't work, I wouldn't see it done so often.

For sure, it's not the ideal arrangement, but that's if you're an RF snob.

With receive antennas, you are concerned with two things; the antenna is tuned to the right frequency, and the height of the antenna.

The first is pretty easy; most of those wire dipole antennas you typically get with your stereo receiver are tuned to mid-band FM, 98MHz, but they're broad band enough for your use. I assume you've chosen the closest VPR station; I see there are many rebroadcasted frequencies. If you were to nail it to a board and face the broad side toward VPR, you might find you get the best reception. If you face the end of the dipole at VPR, like an arrow pointing to the transmitter, reception should be poorer.

And height: If you live in a valley, too bad. Regardless of where you live, just for fun, see if you can play by putting an antenna above house-height. Getting the antenna outside is usually a big help. Mounting the antenna in an attic is a good second option. It's getting the wires to the radio for a permanent installation that's the problem.

[giordana93]

what Todd say: unlikely to work. it would seem that a nice long piece of wire in any length would collect the radio waves and longer would be better but it does not work that way. antenna theory is actually kind of interesting and worth looking into for a solution to your desired frequency hunting. short answer is to get a dedicated fm antenna mounted as high as possible or move it around in the attic until you pick up your channel. electromagnetic waves are funny things

[Noteddy]

When I was building radios as a kid I regularly connected the old wire box spring on my bed to the antenna. Worked a lot better than nothing. As noted, there is absolutely no harm in trying it. I predict a small positive effect.

[Mabouya]

Maybe if you add a rotating magnetic field using a large motor on the roof and several large magnets, you could turn your house into a giant tazer or at least have some wicked static shocks.

Better yet, you could make a giant Van de Graaff generator:

[bigbill]

Ok, seriously, as a kid I had a Sony Earth Orbiter 8 band radio next to my bed. I had a 10m antenna in the attic and it worked pretty well.

[Tristan]

Doesn't every radio station in the developed world broadcast over the internet now?

[Peter Polack]

Doesn't every radio station in the developed world broadcast over the internet now?

Yes. But some of us are too cheap to buy whatever interface is needed to get the signal from our computer to the stereo. But tell me; what kind of gear is there that will convert the internet feed to something wireless that my equipment can accept through an analog RCA input-I'm interested. And that means you gotta have the computer running to get the signal to the radio. Sounds like a pain; too many things to turn on.

And remember; Andrevich4 is using a RADIO; it might not have the inputs for getting the wireless signal from the computer in the first place.

[j44ke]

You mean other than an audio cable?

Bluetooth audio adapter.

WIFI & Bluetooth audio adapter.

An old Airport Express.

An old iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad.

We use an old iPad that is bogged down by most things, but it still plays music perfectly well - albums, podcasts, internet radio streams. Currently it is hooked up directly to a pair of Bose computer speakers, but I've been meaning to get a little DAC amp and some better speakers. However the current arrangement is sufficient so....

My sister-in-law uses an FM transmitter to broadcast the signal from an online stream to any radio in the house and beyond. They have an 800' dock that runs through a cypress swamp to the river, and they can pick up the signal out there if they want music to go with the sound of frogs and insects. But without the internet they'd have no radio at all, because they are in sort of a signal no-man's-land.

[charliedid]

Yes. But some of us are too cheap to buy whatever interface is needed to get the signal from our computer to the stereo. But tell me; what kind of gear is there that will convert the internet feed to something wireless that my equipment can accept through an analog RCA input-I'm interested. And that means you gotta have the computer running to get the signal to the radio. Sounds like a pain; too many things to turn on.

And remember; Andrevich4 is using a RADIO; it might not have the inputs for getting the wireless signal from the computer in the first place.

How does $8.00 grab you? Come in Tokyo!

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[Bob Ross]

I live in an old house that seems to have several generations of mysterious copper wires running through it. I don't know what they were once for but they're just occupying space and they do NOT have electrical current running through them.

I would want to be doubly, tripply, quadrupply sure of this before I even thought about whether repurposing them would work!

[j44ke]

My brain was scratching itself raw trying to remember what that wiring is called, so I had to search - knob & tube. Knobs are the ceramic insulators that kept the wire suspended off surfaces, and tubes are the the ceramic tubes used to insulate the copper going through the beams.

The ones in our house looked pretty much exactly like the stuff in the photos at the link.

We run the Internet through the electrical wiring in our apartment. An ethernet cable runs from the router into a "Home Plug" unit plugged into an outlet, then I have another Home Plug in a signaless area of the apartment that is connected to my wife's computer by another ethernet cable. Works very well, plenty speedy enough to stream HD movies and bicycle races. Makes me wonder a bit more why knob and tube wiring couldn't be used for some sort of an antenna. Just might not be very powerful.

[Andrevich4]

And remember; Andrevich4 is using a RADIO; it might not have the inputs for getting the wireless signal from the computer in the first place.

That's right and that was deliberate.

Without being a fear-monger, my wife and I feel that wifi is the new secondhand smoke so we limit how much we keep it on.

[Mabouya]

Without being a fear-monger, my wife and I feel that wifi is the new secondhand smoke so we limit how much we keep it on.

Nothing a tin-foil suit won't fix.

(jk, I don't like all those electromagnetic waves in my head either)