Thanks. That is very helpful. I am new to all of this, and trying to
figure it out.

I think that most of the noise is actually coming from my house, and if
the wire picks it up, it is probably near to where ther eceiver is.

I just ran to wire high, to see if that helps, and tomorrow i am running
a new, longer length that will be even higher. If that is still noisy,
then I am going to look into running coax from the wire (connecting near
the roof), to the receiver. I need to read up on that some more.

Also, I dont have the wire grounded. I have been reading on that also,
but am not yet clear on what, if anything i actually need to do.

mike

Dave wrote:
Longer wire probably would help. I am using two twisted pairs, twisted
together (old phone wire, to be more exact.) This, I believe, gives a
better signal than just a single wire, but it is not that significant.
Length is far more productive in my experience. One question: does your
wire run by an air-conditioner or anything like that? Such a device would
definetly cause noise on your antenna. I run the wire into a piece of 50
ohm coax to get it by my air conditioner, and ground that first where it
comes off the roof and down to the ground and again where it goes up and
into my window. Totally quiet, when overall background noise drops out
enough to notice. I also inductively couple this to my whip antenna, to
gain the extra boost from the preamp attached to the whip. (Have a plug
that fits the external antenna jack, and clip this to some wire wrapped
several times around the whip.)

If any of this helps, let me know and I will see if I can come up with
anything else...

Regards,

Dave

"Mike Chambers" wrote in message
news:2006122911392716807-mikechambers@gmailcom...
I have got about 40 feet of wire in my backyard (running up a very steep
hill). I have the same issue as you, where if I dont connect the wire, then
the signal is too low to really pick up.

Would it help if I had a longer wire?

mike

On 2006-12-29 11:25:55 -0800, "Dave" said:

I've managed to pull them in on 9335 a couple times (at 1300 UTC) but it
always fades out on me as the sun continues to climb. And I'm in Houston
with a 7600GR and about 110' of longwire on the roof. What is your
setup? When I was using just the whip antenna the S/N ratio was so low
that I couldn't make out anything other than the announcement that I was
listening to Voice of Korea. Nothing else recognizable, but it was all
just background noise.

Dave

Telamon, Thanks for the hint! Tonight once if got dark, the
interference started up again. I went out to the corner, and sure
enough, the light was out.

I took my radio out there, and the interference was definately from
there. Once my eyes got used to the dark, I could even faintly see the
light trying to come on (in sync with the interference).

Now I just have to figure out how to get it fixed.

thanks again...

mike

On Fri, 29 Dec 2006 11:17:10 -0800, Telamon
wrote:

Sounds like a bad street lamp trying to turn on, failing, and cycling.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

"Mike Chambers" wrote in message
. ..
Thanks. That is very helpful. I am new to all of this, and trying to
figure it out.

I think that most of the noise is actually coming from my house, and if
the wire picks it up, it is probably near to where ther eceiver is.

I just ran to wire high, to see if that helps, and tomorrow i am running a
new, longer length that will be even higher. If that is still noisy, then
I am going to look into running coax from the wire (connecting near the
roof), to the receiver. I need to read up on that some more.

Also, I dont have the wire grounded. I have been reading on that also, but
am not yet clear on what, if anything i actually need to do.

mike



For grounding, I bought two eight or ten foot grounding rods from Home Depot
(copper coated steel with one end pointed and the other having the edges
rounded off) and drove them into the gumbo we call dirt around here with a
three-pound sledge (I think.) Got some grounding blocks from the local
parts depot and clamped them onto the rods with clamps also from Home Depot.
Fed the coax into and out of the grounding blocks so that the shield of the
coax made contact with the grounding blocks. Did this where the coax came
off the roof, and where it went into my window, so that the air conditioner
that the coax went past didn't cause any interference, and have a nice quiet
connection.

Good luck. Don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions. Someone will
have the answer.

Dave