David:

I'm almost as new as you are with this type of radio. Many of these guys
have been at it so long that they will give you a few generalities, but they
sometimes forget to warn you about a few things. Using the antenna in the
house may work for houses with wooden siding, but when you have aluminum or
any metal siding, you are going to have problems. My experience says you
have to go above the metal siding to do any good. In my case, its too late
in the year to string wire antenna from the trees around the house. I did
put a straight wire antenna in the attic with decent results; i.e., much
better than the reel antenna and the whip.

Also, where are you locating your "shack" in the house? Mine is in the
basement. Let's see, in the basement and behind metal siding. Big problems!
So for me (and until spring when I can get something in the trees) the attic
wire will have to do. I didn't know where to attach the downlead or what
kind of downlead to attach. I finally just went with a downlead of the
coaxial cable I use to bring cable tv into the house. The only reason for
that is that I already had some strung up into the attic. I soldered the
center conductor of the coax to the end of the 40 foot wire I strung to the
rafters in the attic. Maybe it should have been attached to the middle of
the single strand #14 insulated wire. I suspect the coax isn't the best kind
because there appears to be a lot of noise on some of the lower frequencies,
but its better than it was when I just tossed about 25 feet lamp up in the
tree next to my basement window, put an alligator clip on the end, and
attached it to my whip antenna.

David, I suspect what all this radio stuff is about is experimentation. And
the experimentation is with various ways of building and hooking up
antennas. This stuff can be alluring and confounding. I should have started
this hobby when I was much younger.

Harlan


"David Mills" wrote in message
link.net...
Hey folks,

I got a new Grundig YB PE 300 shortwave radio for Christmas! (yeah!).
The radio comes with an external antenna jack and an external antenna that
is approximately 17 feet long.

Questions:
Does it/should it matter which direction the ext antena goes? also would
a
longer antenna be better?
So far..the external antenna does not seem to be making much
difference..but
not experimented much with it yet.

Should the antenna be mostly outdoors or is indoors good enough?

OTherwise..i am real happy with radio.. have already gotten readio
Bulgaria
(in french), Taiwan and radio Netherlands (in English) and Radio France
(in
french).

I read a post here a while back pondering weather short wave was dead or
dying in the us. No it flourishes..but knowing a foreign language really
helps..or to put another way.. knowing only the english language and none
other is definitely limiting!

David