RadioBanter - View Single Post

October 30th 05, 06:04 PM

On 29 Oct 2005 17:42:29 -0700, wrote:

Here is the situation. I have no access to a ground except for
laying radials on the floor. No outdoor access at all. I want to try an
indoor longwire and an indoor vertical first before experimenting with
an active antenna. My receiver is Radio Shack DX-398 but I plan to get
an Icom R75 or AOR 7030 soon. Question 1 is it better to run the indoor
longwire to the two longest points in the apartment about 25' and have
an inverted L or run the wire along two walls for a total length of
40'.

It's only wire. It's cheap. Try them both.

Question 2 Am I better off getting the MFJ 956 Preselector tuner or
the MFJ 1610 random wire tuner? Question 3 will either of these tuners
work on a vertical like the wire broomstick setup or a loaded coil
vertical?

Looking at the quality of the receivers you're considering, I'm not
sure you need an external preselector. Those are mainly for cheapo
receivers.

The MFJ random wire tuner will work on any unbalanced single wire
antenna, whether it is horizontal or vertical. It may help to match
the impedance of that antenna to the antenna input of your receiver,
and give a louder signal. If your receiver has a "high Z" or "high
impedance" or "random wire" connector, there may be less need for the
1610 tuner, but it still may help. Personally, I'd get the tuner --
it'll be there for any single wire antenna you try, and can help,
especially if you're listening to a wide range of frequencies from a
single antenna (and it's not that expensive).

One thing to remember, antenna tuners can make a signal louder, but if
you have a lot of man-made noise at your location, the noise will be
louder, too, so your signal to noise ratio will remain unchanged.

bob
k5qwg

Thanks

Sean Dayton