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Old August 30th 04, 03:16 PM
Mark S. Holden
 
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Johnny Lipps wrote:
snip
I stated from the get-go that I'm looking to tune into broadcasts for
Indonesian music.

snip

I'm going with the RX-320. Now I have to read up on constructing the best
antenna for an apartment in an urban area.



Hi

I've never had an RX-320, but folks seem to love them.

A neat feature is you'll have quite a few programmable IF filter choices available.

Your mileage may vary, but if you're listening to music, I suggest starting with a filter in the range of 6.0 khz for AM mode, and 2.9-3.2 khz for sideband.

As for your antenna, if you're in a wood frame building that doesn't have aluminum siding, and you can't have an outdoor antenna, you might try an antenna like one of my friends has.

It's a loop of wire around the perimeter of his living room, up near the ceiling. He uses thumb tacks or push pins every few feet to hold it up. You can see it if you look for it, but most folks don't notice it because the he used wire wrap wire (it's
thin) and it and the pins are the same color as the walls.

He uses an impedance matching transformer where the antenna connects to the coax.

I like loop antennas indoors because they don't pick up as much RFI as a random wire. Another popular low noise design is a dipole.

He feeds his into a multi coupler and from there into three rack mount HF radios.

If you can use an outdoor antenna, you might try something like the "Doty style" antenna - it's a random wire away from the house with an impedance matching transformer. Mine is down at the moment because my impedance matching transformer got vaporized
by lightning strike, but it's normally as quiet as when I'm camping in the woods.