RadioBanter - View Single Post

March 29th 04, 09:06 PM

(BCcubed) wrote in message ...
Hey JBR

I do know this and have used this function. My question had to do with
damaging the radio by stringing a 75 foot square of wire 12 above the ground
and using the ext. antenna on my SAT 700 to DX without hurting the radio.

Until I can get a better radio I was hoping to find some way to modify this one
to perform better.

neil

You won't damage the radio by using a 75-feet wire antenna UNLESS
lightning strikes or is close enough to cause strong static. The
added signal strength, which might not be as much as you expect it to
be, will not damage the radio. If the signal overloads, you will
merely hear the signal where is doesn't belong, or it may be very
distorted. I used a sloper antenna (not cheap) with my Satellit 650
and found that on some bands the internal whip gave a stronger signal,
and on other bands the sloper either gave a slight advantage or
sometimes a major advantage. On my Panasonic RF-2200 I could hardly
tell the difference between the whip antenna and adding an external
long wire antenna. Sensitivity on the Satellit 700 (assuming it is
about the same as the 500) is excellent using the internal whip
antenna (about .28 - .31 uV) while only fair when using an external
antenna (1.1 - 1.4 uV). So the manufacturer has compensated for the
stronger signal received on an external antenna by reducing the
sensitivity, thus, reducing the signal the set will receive. That is
why you won't be able to do serious DXing on your radio. Of course
any external antenna might make an improvement. If using a 75-ft wire
antenna would damage your radio, Grundig would NOT have put an
external antenna jack on your radio.