Dear Steve,

If you run any kind of wire in your house, you probably will not need
any grounding at all. Just to check, however, try the radio without
grounding at first and then try hooking up a ground and see if there is
any improvement or any difference at all. (The ground on your
electrical outlet is fine for this experiment.)

RHF and BPNJensen's posts are also correct. A loop antenna used inside
a house may give better performance than just plain wire run randomly
and loops generally need no grounding.

As a matter of fact, in my personal experience, a loop antenna, indoors
or outdoors, will afford much better reception quality (S/N ratio) than
long wires in areas where there is a great deal of local electrical
interference as loops tend to "reject" such interference.

You might want to try to make (or buy) a loop antenna and mount it in a
window. There are several sources on the web for instructions and a
very good book is Joe Carr's LOOP ANTENNA HANDBOOK.

Do try a good antenna on your Satellit 800. I think you'll be very
pleased.

Best,

Joe