"D. Peter Maus" wrote:

On 11/24/09 09:01 , dxAce wrote:


"D. Peter Maus" wrote:

On 11/24/09 06:28 , dxAce wrote:


"D. Peter Maus" wrote:

On 11/23/09 16:12 , dxAce wrote:


"D. Peter Maus" wrote:

On 11/23/09 13:44 , dxAce wrote:


"D. Peter Maus" wrote:

On 11/23/09 09:24 , dxAce wrote:


"D. Peter Maus" wrote:

On 11/23/09 08:18 , dxAce wrote:


"D. Peter Maus" wrote:

On 11/23/09 01:19 , Gregg wrote:
On Nov 22, 8:44 am, "D. Peter
wrote:
On 11/21/09 18:55 , Bill Baka wrote:

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

I have a Becker 2340 I used in my 308 for years. That was the
last aftermarket radio I saw with SW. I've heard tell of some
Sony's, but not being interested in anything from Sony, I never
pursued them.

The Becker offered excellent SW performance on the car's antenna.
A little ignition noise in deep fades, but not enough to complain
about. The injectors on 18 wheelers were more of a problem than
ignition noise. It has 40 or so memories. And exceptional audio.

As for driving out into the weeds...we had a member of this
group, living in Colorado, who used to drive out into Wyoming and
about two miles outside of Jackson Hole would hook his SW-2 up to
the guard rail and use that as a makeshift pseudo Beverage.

With dramatic results.

But attaching anything to your car radio antenna will not get you
where you want to go.

A car antenna does not really operate as an antenna. It's too
short for medium wave. It operates more like a capacitive element,
and is trimmed at the input to optimize performance. Attach a wire
to the car antenna, and you'll change it's capacitive value, and
throw your input out of balance. You're also likely to change that
whip into something that behaves more like a real antenna and
seriously overload your front end. On some models this can be
disastrous.

A better option would be to see if you can find an in-dash on the
used market, or take something like an SW-8 with you, mount it
underdash and enjoy it as a real shortwave receiver with a separate
antenna system.

That was a great post Peter. I liked the guardrail story.:-)

My friend hooked onto the railroad tracks once before keying up a lot
of wattage on his CB, he used the RR tracks as his ground.shaking my
head

I really never thought about hooking to the RR tracks for a shortwave
antenna, what do you think the results would be?

Not sure. That would be the fun of the experiment. It may be
little different than the guard rail. It may be something entirely
different. The results should be unexpected and dramatic.

What type of car were you refering to when you said "308"?? Just
curious.

Think "Magnum PI."

Great car. As I recall it was a 308GTBI, or like that? I went to the factory and
saw them built right along with my once loved FIAT X1/9 !!!


Magnum's was a 308 GTS. The 'B' was for the Berlinetta, the hard
top, and 'I' was for injection. His was a GTS(pyder), carbureted.

Mine was the 308 GTSI-QV. Mine was injected, 32 valve on the same
3.0L V-8. It wasn't quick, but it was FAST. And serious fun to drive.

You had an X1/9?

Yeah, metallic black, 1979 version as I recall, with the more integrated bumpers. A
great car, put at least 170k plus on it from coast to coast.

That's actually pretty good for that engine. It wasn't known for
longevity.

170k is a serious amount of driving fun. I'd say you got your
money out of it. You got everybody's money out of it.

Nicely done.

Thanks. The car always started with just a click of the key. Never a problem. It was the
undercarriage that failed.


Really. In what way?

If you recall the design it had a trunk in the front as well as the rear. What happened to
mine was that moisture up under the front apparently rotted out the area that supported the
front struts.



No kidding. Damn. You're lucky something didn't let go on the road.

I was actually quite fortunate that it let go where it did in Muskegon, MI. On a certain city
street there one has (or had) to cross four or five railroad tracks in rather rapid succession,
at not a high rate of speed. It let go then.

Another two or three miles and I would have been on the highway to home probably doing 70 MPH.
Had it all came apart then I might not be here now.

Yeah, probably would have turned you over.

Yeah. I did get a lot of use out of that car though! And, it still had its original exhaust system on
it.

A poor man's Ferrari!

Indeed. I had a g/f years ago, with an X1/9. She couldn't keep it
running for love or money. I spent a weekend going through that
drive train and rebuilt everything I could put my hands on.

Fired it up and took it out for some break-in driving.

VERY serious fun. Not too unlike that 914/6 I was driving at the
time.

I wouldn't mind owning one, myself, today.

The only thing I did to the car later on was remove the catalytic convertor and put some slightly larger
jets in the carb.

It was indeed a very fun car and I miss it like I miss my Dodge Dakota.