Sanjaya wrote:

I have a 50 ft. random wire (22 AWG) I use for my portable
SW's. It is indoors and just runs around the ceiling of my listening room.
Connects to the receivers with a 1/8th inch mono plug.

Now I'm looking at the Icom IC-R75 and see it needs a 500 ohm
longwire.

Is there a way to convert my random wire to function properly
with the Icom. That is, can I make it a 500 ohm wire? Alternately,
can I take it down and replace it with another wire. Since I don't
know sh*t about antennas, what makes a wire 500 ohms, and what
parts, besides the proper gauge wire, are needed?

Presently I have to keep this simple, since I can't
put anything up outside. If I move I could put up a "real" antenna
outdoors, but if I get the Icom now I'd need to use basically the
same setup I use for the portables.

Should I forget the Icom until I have a new house? Geez... then
I'd have a $100,000 shortwave radio.

If you want to e-mail a reply instead of post you can send it
to sanjaya_49 at yahoo dot com

Just plug the wire into the 500 ohm input. By their very nature, random wires
have, generally, a high impedence.

dxAce