"Mike Spence" wrote in message
om...
"Jack Painter" wrote in message
news:Zuuid.1$uT4.0@lakeread03...
Mike, a receiver that does not provide for external antenna connection,
will
probably not benefit from forcing the input of one. The front end design
of
many portables uses double-conversion only, this allows for reception of
fairly weak signals from the provided whip antenna. But it does not
always
bode well when powerful inputs such as an external antenna can provide,
overloading the little portables and making it more difficult to discern
between stations close to each other. Recommend you use your portable
for
what it was intended for, and look into adding a tabletop receiver if
you
want to input external antenna feed.

Best regards,

Jack Painter
Virginia Beach VA

Thanks for that Jack, I see your point. The receiver in question is a
Sony XDR-S1 DAB and I'm in a marginal reception area. Before I spent
out on DAB I tried one (not the Sony) and the reception was
reasonable, the Sony isn't as good though and I just thought that
maybe I could help it a bit with an external aerial.

Thanks for your thoughts,

Mike

Rig up a random length insulated wire temporary antenna outside to a tree or
something. Bring the end to your receiver and wind it around the outside of
the radio case a few times and temporarily connect the free end to something
grounded such as the ground pin of a duplex outlet; be careful! This may
give you some capacitive and inductive coupling especially if your radio has
a ferrite rod antenna. It may, on some bands, give an improvement.
Experiment a bit. Have even wound the telephone cord around a portable. Also
connected capacitively from the whip of a DX394 to a plastic covered metal
clothes line and right now I've got a lead from the receiver whip clipped to
a six foot metal bedroom curtain rod! It even improved very weak reception
here from European Long Wave stations on 152 to 198 kilohertz. Yup that's
around a wavelength of 1500 metres! Also if you've got a phone with any
metal in it (most phones nowadays are plastic!) clip a lead from your whip
to that. Try anything that might work and is safe.
Have fun. Terry.