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Old February 26th 11, 11:21 PM posted to rec.radio.shortwave
dave dave is offline
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Jan 2009
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Default I used the rest of my 500 feet roll of 14g stranded

On 02/26/2011 07:11 AM, Joe from Kokomo wrote:
On 2/26/2011 8:59 AM, dave wrote:
and made the biggest loop I could build. It goes from the far corners of
the back yard to the left front corner of the house to a support on the
right side of the house, a kind of truncated rectangle I guess, 15 feet
or so above my desert oasis. I terminated it with an MFJ-913 4:1 BalUn.

The antenna works great for SWL (can't steer it unfortunately for ham
radio) and MWDX. It is very quiet noise from the neighbors. It also
fades less. I can get every powerhouse in the West (except POS KFI) at
night, perfectly. No dimmers buzzing. No plasma TVs. No RV Battery
chargers.


Thanks for the description of your new antenna...but you have piqued my
curiosity.

I'm glad it works for you, but pardon me, I'm always suspicious of
antenna claims that say it is great for radio signals but does not pick
up noise.

Hey, we are talking about a piece of #14 wire. RF is RF, noise or the
wanted station. I would be curious to see how that plain piece of wire
is smart enough to differentiate between wanted RF (stations) and
unwanted RF (noise).

My theory is as follows...

You said "I can get every *powerhouse* in the West..."

Is it possible that the antenna is not so great? The noise is weaker
than the wanted (strong) signal. In other words, because the antenna is
only fair to poor, the weaker noise is not heard, but your "powerhouse"
stations are strong enough to be heard.

To give an extreme example, a ham friend less than a mile away and I had
a QSO using dummy loads! Needless to say, there was NO noise, but the
signal was enough of a "powerhouse" that we could carry on communications.

Any thoughts????

P.S. Not starting a flame war against your antenna. I'm just curious.




I imagine common mode rejection works in the near field (within 50 or 60
feet or so). This would mean all of my house, and most of my either side
neighbors' houses.

I'm listening to XX 1090 Sports, from Rosarito Beach, BC, 100 miles
away, and they are the loudest cleanest signal on the AM band.

http://www.xxsportsradio.com/pages/main

http://fccinfo.com/CMDProEngine.php?...09324&sHours=N