Antenna Getting Better

Well, I am slowly but surely making progress with my antenna. I have been having a lot of trouble with RF interference from my random wire antenna. I ran a shielded COAX feed to it, which I grounded, but reception was horrible.

Well, this weekend, I went back up the hill, and made some modifications to try and get a better ground. I also grounded the end of the COAX going into the radio. This second step seemed to make a noticeable improvement to the signal quality (although there is still a lot of interference). I was able to pick up some broadcasts I hadn't picked up before:

• 11735 kHz 0118 - 0122 UTC (Jan 14, 2007). Voice of Korea. SIO 222. This is the first time I have picked it up this early in the night
• 9675 kHz 0456 - 0505 UTC Radio Exterior de Espana. SIO 433. (via Costa Rica). News in Spanish.

My next step is to try to get a copper bar for the antenna ground (just have a small metal nail right now), as well as use a balum (need to read up on these some more).

Comments

[Ralph]

Mike,
I enjoyed reading you updates on SWL. I'm a SWL Dxer and Amateur in NYC. I also brought the Grundig g5 and love it. I also have a Sony ICF SW-07 thats great. I was reading about your noise problem and I have been frustrated as well until I read about a home made Magnetic Loop Antenna from http://www.kr1st.com/swlloop.htm. His design
is simple to make and made for indoors. It's directional and can null nearby strong stations and since it works with the magnectic side and not the electrical it helps reduce man made electrical interference. I'm made one and love it on the G5, I've logged hundreds of stations. Feel free to reply with comments and any more info.

[Taylor]

i need help on making the xbox usb adapter.

[Tom Sullivan]

Mike,

Can you please remove the mailto links on the 'Posted by:' byline at the end of comments. It is only providing email addresses to harvesters. Your comment preview option claims that email addresses are NOT displayed with comments.

[Tom Sullivan]

On the noise problem, I have found the Wellbrook ALA 1530 to be a great help. It really is suited for use with a tabletop communications receiver. The Sony AN-LP1 is a good choice for portables, but increasingly difficult to source.