Brenda Ann wrote:
"Bill Baka" wrote in message
...
Has anyone seen any shortwave radios in cars lately? I remember a few from
across the pond back in the 60's but it seems to have died out as a fad. I
would like to put one in one of my cars rather than a boom box thing and
be able to tune the world from wherever I find myself.
The other advantage is that I can drive to a spot with no power lines for
miles at night to listen relatively static free. I could (in theory) take
a long wire on a fishing pole (28-32AWG?) and put on a disposable weight
and toss it as far as possible into some high trees. Once it is stuck
firmly just back the car up until the whole spool is used up and connect
the car antenna to it.
Anybody tried it or anything like it?

Bill Baka

Sony still makes some really nice AM/FM/SW radios for cars (with the
requisite CD/MP3 player, etc.) that have, although not full coverage, at
least pretty decent coverage.

I will go look. A CD/MP3 player would be wasted on me since I prefer to
listen to the sounds the car and road make while I am driving.
Was going to look. The Sony home page won't work with my version of
Firefox and IE will never be allowed to slime my drive.
Maybe Egghead or Frys or some other large consumer place.

As for the antenna, car radios are made to impedence match to the relatively
short standard car radio antenna, and usually do not respond too well to
additional antenna length. You CAN, however, place a variable capacitor
between the car antenna and your random longwire, and tune it for best
reception for a given frequency. This would at least give you the advantage
of the extra capture area.



As a rule when I buy a car one of the first things I adjust is the
antenna trimmer, which is usually a bit off anyway. Funny how most
people don't even know these things exist. Thinking about it, an MFJ
tuning box sitting under the dash should be a real conversation starter.

Cheers,
Bill Baka