On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 16:07:50 -0500, clvrmnky
wrote:
Right now I'm running battery only because I have perfectly useful
rechargeables. Anyway, it is giving me a chance to see if the PS adds
any noise. It doesn't appear to.

Hi OM,

That is fortunate. Try not to introduce any grounds such as you
discuss below.

It would seem this is another place where various holy wars have waged
over the years. My survey of the literature indicates that a great many
people don't even consider a dipole of any stripe fed to an unbalance
RX/TX as a "dipole."

Dipole has only one meaning of value: Two Poles. Each pole acts as
the electromotive opposite of the other. Without opposites, no
current flows (and in a sense, a monopole finds its dipolar opposite
in ground).

Isn't this the notion of many of those cheapo plastic baluns one gets to
feed coax to an older TV which would have accepted parallel line?
Well, I suppose these are ostensibly to match impedance, but they are
described as converting balanced to unbalanced connections.

BalUns are so simple that the cheap ones work quite well.

I understand that ground (as a notion) is not an absolute. I have what
I have. I *may* be able to convince my landlord to let me trail a wire
off the balcony to the ground. We'll see.

Don't go there. Introduction of alternate grounds, especially if they
do not conform to code bring the almost certainty of ground loops.
You don't even want to consider the insurance risk. There is probably
no reception advantage over the already available service ground found
at the wall socket. (I am perhaps mistakenly presuming this was for a
receiver only.)

According to what you suggested so far, both sides of my loop can go
directly to my antenna input.

The input and chassis, per accepted terms for both.

Ok, can do. I'll give it a try and see
if things work measurably better.

You may find you are already at the knee of the curve of diminishing
returns. What will pay off is

1. making the antenna connection as remote as possible;
2. using coax;
3. choking that connection;
4. providing for antenna tuning at the radio.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC