Hello Jim,

On 11 oct, 18:10, JimK wrote:
On Oct 4, 4:15*am, Wimpie wrote:



On 2 oct, wrote:

I'd like to try an external antenna, but one was not included with my
G5. What type ofwireshould I get (stranded, solid, gauge,
insulated...), and do I just solder it to the pos or neg lead of a
miniplug to go into the ext antenna receptacle?

Thanks....

Jim

Hello Jim,

Every type of metalwirewill work for you situation (solid, stranded,
plasticized galvanized washing line, etc).

Most modern SW receivers with internal antennas are very sensitive,
but cannot handle strong signals, so longer will not always be
better.

To reduce the interference from electronic equipment close to your SW
receiver, you may put a coaxial cable between the actual antenna and
the receiver. You can use any type of 75, 90 or 50 Ohms cable. The
center conductor goes to the center pin of the mini plug and the bread
goes to the ground of the mini plug.

The antenna side of the cable needs some clarification. The antennawiregoes to the center conductor of the cable, the braid should be
connected to ground outside your house (or at least far away from
where you expect or have interference).

What is "ground"? *When you live in an apartment, it can be the metal
fence or railing of the balcony. *You can use a ground rod or any
other large metallic structure outside your house. Connect the braid
of the cable directly to the ground structure. Do not insert a long
run ofwirebetween the metal structure and the braid of the coaxial
cable.

For some form of static / impulse protection you may add a 1… 3 uH
inductor between the center conductor and the braid. Note that this
inductor will attenuate AM broadcast band reception.

As others said, you have to experiment with the orientation of thewireto get best signal/noise ratio. When you are very limited in
space for thewire, you may use some 5..10 feet of chicken mesh as
reception antenna or use more wires in a fan shape.

Best regards,

Wim
PA3DJSwww.tetech.nl
please remove abc when using PM.

OK, sorry, I see I was confusing the antenna and radio sides of the
coax. The radio side: center of coax to center of mini, shield brain
to surround of mini. *

OK

Antenna side:
braid to ground post, center to
antenna wire. So I can have the run between outside ground post and
radio using coax.

OK, working this way avoids that the cable picks up interference from
domestic equipment.

But can I damage G5 with an external wire? If so I'll use the whip
inductor. Please advise....

Yes, you can, as most of these portable recievers do not have strong
input protection, nearby strikes can damage the input. Don't make
the wire longer then necessary and remove the mini plug from the radio
in case of natural photo flash. You might add the inductor or resistor
to lower the risk on damage because of built-up of static
electricity.

Using a special transformer as mentioned in other postings gives you
more signal output in case of short wires. So you can have a shorter
wire (for example when you have limited space). I do not share the
opinion that these transformers reduce interference significantly.

When you live in a residential area, you probably don't need this as
noise will be dominant with moderate wire lengths. More signal does
not always mean better reception as noise will raise also.

thanks
Jim

Best regards,

Wim
PA3DJS
www.tetech.nl