Subject: What to do with lots of receivers and lots of antennas?
From: "Mark" ks
Date: 7/16/2004 1:31 AM Eastern Standard Time

Hi...

I currently have four Sony HF radios which will shortly be joined a JRC
NRD-545. I also currently have two antennas, a longwire and a di-pole.

Time for a tidy-up! What does everybody do when they want to share two or
three antennas amongst several radios (short of constanly unplugging and
replugging everything)?

Can I simply build myself a switch box? Put each antenna onto a common bus
and use switches to assign to the various outputs that are connected to the
various receivers?

Can it be that simple? And what of using two antennas at once? Anybody
experimented with this? Any gain (no pun intended) in doing that?

I'm thinking of feeding all the record outputs to a small multi-channel
mixer. (I currently have a home recording studio, so I can then feed the
output to a nice amp and set of speakers).

Mark

Mark,

A multicoupler.

The creme de la creme can be found at www.stridsberg.com/index.htm. A very
capable and less-expensive multi is sold by W.J. Ford in Toronto
(www.testequipmentcanada.com/M-50-8.html). Perhaps the ultimate, if you're in a
do-it-yourself frame of mind, was featured in the May issue of the ham journal
QST. If you can't lay your hands on it, a pdf file can be viewed and downloaded
at www2.arrl.org/qst/2004/05/garland.pdf. You can also go to the author's
website, worth the trip for that alone--it's got great content:
www.miami.muohio.edu/president/personal/w8zr.

Good luck!

Avery W3AVE
Potomac, Md.