Aye Reg--economics rules the world... except my very own bench... and then it is my wallet and "tight a$$ nature"... I am little better than those buggers who want to keep all the money for themselves! grin

And, you are right again, I have been reduced to the humble L-tuner in the past... and it does work ok...

For the radio gnd, in the past, I used a modified plug into the "record" jack which is available, and use its gnd connection(from the gnd on that plug--which "seems" to actually be hooked to circuit board ground, special screws hold the back on the radio which I do not have a tool to remove (similar to an "allen wrench"--but different)--and never looked hard for one--or machined one,for the L-Tuner, however, a modest gain in performance seems to be realized by using a real earth ground, even to the point of being able to pull the radio ground while still realizing the benefit, and a modest adjustment of the L-tuner--I expect EXTREME impedance at the whip--even touching the whip degrades signal reception drastically--when other ant is hooked....

I simply measured the gnd I get from the "ground plug" I am using to the neg of the batteries, they are at the same level, and I decided to call that close enough to call gnd...

Warmest regards,
John
"Reg Edwards" wrote in message ...
Sorry to disappoint you John.

Nobody has ever made a significant improvement using aligator clips,
lengths of wire and baluns on a portable whip receiver. Except, if
lucky, merely by chance on one band at the expense of the others.

You may, however, hear a bunch of claims, e.g., by CB-ers and
plagiarising old-wives, based on imagination and wishful thinking.

Signal to noise ratio is what matters. And that's an uncontrollable
function of the incoming signals and noise. the ionosphere, and of the
receiver itself.

However, it's quite interesting to experiment with longer antennas.
Obtain a circuit diagram of the receiver and try to predict what will
happen - if anything.

A most elementary circuit analysis is all that's needed. Otherwise you
will be working entirely in the dark.

Clear your head and forget about a balun. You must have been reading
the wrong magazines articles. You are dealing with an
unbalanced-to-unbalanced, very high impedance-to-high impedance
situation.

Consider a ground conection to the receiver chassis. This lowers the
impedance to more predictable values. OK if you are located
conveniently near to a domestic plumbing system. But even a short rod
in good soil will have some effect for either better or worse.

If you insist, signal to noise ratio MIGHT be improved by using a
single adjustable LC tuned circuit as a pre-selector in conjunction
with a length of wire and a ground connection of some sort. But it
might have an adverse effect.

My guess is that you will end up with a new, Japanese, very expensive,
battery-operated, communications-grade receiver at the end of a
100-feet length of 18-gauge magnet wire. Even if the wire is just
strewn on the ground.

Wait a bit and Chinese, equally good, 1/2-price versions may become
available.

Economics provide the foundations of all engineering. If you don't
understand economics then you don't understand anything. Not even SWR
or the portion of a dipole from which most of the radiation is
supposed to occur.
----
Regards, Reg.

.... when other ant is hooked...
--should have been--
....when NO other ant is hooked...

John
"John Smith" wrote in message ...
Aye Reg--economics rules the world... except my very own bench... and then it is my wallet and "tight a$$ nature"... I am little better than those buggers who want to keep all the money for themselves! grin

And, you are right again, I have been reduced to the humble L-tuner in the past... and it does work ok...

For the radio gnd, in the past, I used a modified plug into the "record" jack which is available, and use its gnd connection(from the gnd on that plug--which "seems" to actually be hooked to circuit board ground, special screws hold the back on the radio which I do not have a tool to remove (similar to an "allen wrench"--but different)--and never looked hard for one--or machined one,for the L-Tuner, however, a modest gain in performance seems to be realized by using a real earth ground, even to the point of being able to pull the radio ground while still realizing the benefit, and a modest adjustment of the L-tuner--I expect EXTREME impedance at the whip--even touching the whip degrades signal reception drastically--when other ant is hooked....

I simply measured the gnd I get from the "ground plug" I am using to the neg of the batteries, they are at the same level, and I decided to call that close enough to call gnd...

Warmest regards,
John
"Reg Edwards" wrote in message ...
Sorry to disappoint you John.

Nobody has ever made a significant improvement using aligator clips,
lengths of wire and baluns on a portable whip receiver. Except, if
lucky, merely by chance on one band at the expense of the others.

You may, however, hear a bunch of claims, e.g., by CB-ers and
plagiarising old-wives, based on imagination and wishful thinking.

Signal to noise ratio is what matters. And that's an uncontrollable
function of the incoming signals and noise. the ionosphere, and of the
receiver itself.

However, it's quite interesting to experiment with longer antennas.
Obtain a circuit diagram of the receiver and try to predict what will
happen - if anything.

A most elementary circuit analysis is all that's needed. Otherwise you
will be working entirely in the dark.

Clear your head and forget about a balun. You must have been reading
the wrong magazines articles. You are dealing with an
unbalanced-to-unbalanced, very high impedance-to-high impedance
situation.

Consider a ground conection to the receiver chassis. This lowers the
impedance to more predictable values. OK if you are located
conveniently near to a domestic plumbing system. But even a short rod
in good soil will have some effect for either better or worse.

If you insist, signal to noise ratio MIGHT be improved by using a
single adjustable LC tuned circuit as a pre-selector in conjunction
with a length of wire and a ground connection of some sort. But it
might have an adverse effect.

My guess is that you will end up with a new, Japanese, very expensive,
battery-operated, communications-grade receiver at the end of a
100-feet length of 18-gauge magnet wire. Even if the wire is just
strewn on the ground.

Wait a bit and Chinese, equally good, 1/2-price versions may become
available.

Economics provide the foundations of all engineering. If you don't
understand economics then you don't understand anything. Not even SWR
or the portion of a dipole from which most of the radiation is
supposed to occur.
----
Regards, Reg.

Bob:

I have put on an ancient compiler here... borland turbo pascal... don't know if it related--all started then (and a LOT of other weird stuff to--running windows xp with sp2 and all patches up to date), bear with me while I seek a solution--please... it is microsoft junk yanno... frown

Warmest regards,
John

"Bob Miller" wrote in message ...
On Sat, 28 May 2005 21:16:48 -0700, "John Smith"
wrote:


This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
Boring.

Whatever Brett did to his posting apparatus, the text now falls off
the right edge of the screen (in an Agent reader), requiring back and
forth scrolling to read anything.

bob
k5qwg

On Sun, 29 May 2005 08:51:22 -0700, "John Smith"
wrote:
This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
119 Line response to a 25 line post, and with only 6 lines of new
content.

Try clipping the pull-out antenna to a ground rod.
For some reason, that seems to work better than a long slingshot.
I tried Slingshot -kiddie antennas once and found a ground wire works better
for portables.
;-)

Hal:

You embarrass me... I am a "slingshot kiddies" (kinda of did get tied up shooting a few rocks with the slingshot too--can't deny it--still a boy deep inside)... frown

.... but hey, at least I am past the denial part! grin

That sounds weird, grounding the antenna, but hey, I am ready to be made a fool of in the pursuit of knowledge--it that's what it takes... I'll give it a shot! If it isn't all a "joke", perhaps the length of the ground wire can be manipulated to benefit... heck, I'll even slingshot a longwire over the tallest tree I can find and ground the other end!

Warmest regards,
John
"Hal Rosser" wrote in message .. .
Try clipping the pull-out antenna to a ground rod.
For some reason, that seems to work better than a long slingshot.
I tried Slingshot -kiddie antennas once and found a ground wire works better
for portables.
;-)

.... and will really try your suggestion...

.... but, I was looking for something I could also "McGuiver"(sp?) to work on the next cruise ship... longwires are great for camping... hard to find trees on those ships...

.... kinda afraid what the captain will say when he sees me on deck--slingshot in hand looking around at the booms and masts... dropping something down the porthole might work... and I do suppose sal****er is some sort of ground... grin

Warmest regards,
John
"Hal Rosser" wrote in message .. .
Try clipping the pull-out antenna to a ground rod.
For some reason, that seems to work better than a long slingshot.
I tried Slingshot -kiddie antennas once and found a ground wire works better
for portables.
;-)