On Aug 8, 8:56*am, Bob wrote:
Hello,

Not an antenna expert, so thought I'd ask here.
I've gotten some great info. from you folks in the past, which I really
appreciate.

Will be buying a portable sw receiver for a gift.

Many of them seem to come with a built in telescopic antenna.
I guess the intent is to use fully extended, and vertically, although
horiz. use also seems to be doable from the pictures, but would sure be
awkward in a horiz. position I would think.

How "good" can one receive 30 MHz (and the normal fm broadcast bands)
using one of these antenna vertically ?

Aren't most sw signals horiz. polarized, or, by the time they actually
make it here, the polarization has become pretty much randomized ?

Will try with a "lon'wire" of course, but thought I'd ask re how good
the built in antennas, vert. oriented, are as a general question.

BTW: *anyone have any strong opinions on a good $ 250 max table top
(preferred)or portable sw receiver for a very non-technical person ?
Would want it to have memories. *SSB not necessary.

The front end of many of these portable SW radios is typically "hot"
and has no problem hearing band noise with just the built-in antenna.
That doesn't mean that it's the world's most perfect antenna, it won't
hear nearly as good as something 100 feet up in the air, but it's fine
for the flamethrower SW stations.

But if you attach a longwire... you may find that you have intermod
issues with local AM/FM broadcasters. The front end in most of these
portable SW radios has very little preselection so they're susceptible
especially once you raise the local broadcasters to the level of
hundreds of millivolts. A tuner of some kind will help here.

Tim N3QE