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RF Systems Mini-Windom
I've heard good things about this antenna and recently acquired one.
The performance of this antenna is terrible. In fact, it's so bad that for the past few days I've been scratching my head, wondering what I could possibly be doing wrong. It's a very simple setup...so simple that I can't think of anything I *could* be doing wrong. Just hang it and attach it to your receiver and you should be good to go. Yet the reception I get with this antenna is vastly inferior to what I get with my whip alone. Is there something not mentioned in the instructions that I should know? Please tell me I'm doing something wrong...I don't see how this antenna could perform so badly and yet get such good reviews. Steve (really hoping that the fault is *his*, not the antenna's) |
"Steve" schreef in bericht om... I've heard good things about this antenna and recently acquired one. The performance of this antenna is terrible. In fact, it's so bad that for the past few days I've been scratching my head, wondering what I could possibly be doing wrong. It's a very simple setup...so simple that I can't think of anything I *could* be doing wrong. Just hang it where did you hang it? and attach it to your receiver Which reciever? How attached? and you should be good to go. Yet the reception I get with this antenna is vastly inferior to what I get with my whip alone. Is there something not mentioned in the instructions that I should know? Please tell me I'm doing something wrong...I don't see how this antenna could perform so badly and yet get such good reviews. It is not possible to give an answer on this question. Please give (much) more details of your setup. MRe |
"MRe" wrote in message et.nl...
"Steve" schreef in bericht om... I've heard good things about this antenna and recently acquired one. The performance of this antenna is terrible. In fact, it's so bad that for the past few days I've been scratching my head, wondering what I could possibly be doing wrong. It's a very simple setup...so simple that I can't think of anything I *could* be doing wrong. Just hang it where did you hang it? and attach it to your receiver Which reciever? How attached? and you should be good to go. Yet the reception I get with this antenna is vastly inferior to what I get with my whip alone. Is there something not mentioned in the instructions that I should know? Please tell me I'm doing something wrong...I don't see how this antenna could perform so badly and yet get such good reviews. It is not possible to give an answer on this question. Please give (much) more details of your setup. MRe I hung the antenna outside, using the provided nylon cords, on my balcony. It's attached to the external antenna jack of a portable receiver (Sony ICF-SW77). I had to use an adaptor so that it would fit the small antenna jack on my Sony, but it's the same adaptor I've used with other antennas, which seem to work okay. Steve |
Steve wrote: "MRe" wrote in message et.nl... "Steve" schreef in bericht om... I've heard good things about this antenna and recently acquired one. The performance of this antenna is terrible. In fact, it's so bad that for the past few days I've been scratching my head, wondering what I could possibly be doing wrong. It's a very simple setup...so simple that I can't think of anything I *could* be doing wrong. Just hang it where did you hang it? and attach it to your receiver Which reciever? How attached? and you should be good to go. Yet the reception I get with this antenna is vastly inferior to what I get with my whip alone. Is there something not mentioned in the instructions that I should know? Please tell me I'm doing something wrong...I don't see how this antenna could perform so badly and yet get such good reviews. It is not possible to give an answer on this question. Please give (much) more details of your setup. MRe I hung the antenna outside, using the provided nylon cords, on my balcony. It's attached to the external antenna jack of a portable receiver (Sony ICF-SW77). I had to use an adaptor so that it would fit the small antenna jack on my Sony, but it's the same adaptor I've used with other antennas, which seem to work okay. Although it is only 16' long that antenna should give as good or better results than the whip on SW. I just looked at a pic of the jacks on the SW77 and I notice that it says 'AM ext ant'... could it be that that jack is only for attaching an external AM antenna rather than one for SW? I have no experience with that receiver at all but I guess I have to ask that question. What does the manual say about that jack, and about hooking up an external SW antenna? dxAce Steve |
Oh, I should add that I was very careful about following the
instructions provided with the antenna for hanging it. It's not hung against a wall, for example, and is as far out on my balcony as I could possibly put it. The coax feedline drops straight down from the antenna, comes through my window and plugs into the antenna jack on the Sony SW77. I don't think that this antenna is supposed to require a ground, so I'm really puzzled about what I might be doing wrong. Steve |
dxAce wrote in message ...
Steve wrote: "MRe" wrote in message et.nl... "Steve" schreef in bericht om... I've heard good things about this antenna and recently acquired one. The performance of this antenna is terrible. In fact, it's so bad that for the past few days I've been scratching my head, wondering what I could possibly be doing wrong. It's a very simple setup...so simple that I can't think of anything I *could* be doing wrong. Just hang it where did you hang it? and attach it to your receiver Which reciever? How attached? and you should be good to go. Yet the reception I get with this antenna is vastly inferior to what I get with my whip alone. Is there something not mentioned in the instructions that I should know? Please tell me I'm doing something wrong...I don't see how this antenna could perform so badly and yet get such good reviews. It is not possible to give an answer on this question. Please give (much) more details of your setup. MRe I hung the antenna outside, using the provided nylon cords, on my balcony. It's attached to the external antenna jack of a portable receiver (Sony ICF-SW77). I had to use an adaptor so that it would fit the small antenna jack on my Sony, but it's the same adaptor I've used with other antennas, which seem to work okay. Although it is only 16' long that antenna should give as good or better results than the whip on SW. I just looked at a pic of the jacks on the SW77 and I notice that it says 'AM ext ant'... could it be that that jack is only for attaching an external AM antenna rather than one for SW? I have no experience with that receiver at all but I guess I have to ask that question. What does the manual say about that jack, and about hooking up an external SW antenna? dxAce A perfectly reasonable question, but the manual is clear that the antenna you might be attaching to the jack is a SW antenna. They explicitly say it's for LW/MW/SW reception. Steve |
Steve wrote: dxAce wrote in message ... Steve wrote: "MRe" wrote in message et.nl... "Steve" schreef in bericht om... I've heard good things about this antenna and recently acquired one. The performance of this antenna is terrible. In fact, it's so bad that for the past few days I've been scratching my head, wondering what I could possibly be doing wrong. It's a very simple setup...so simple that I can't think of anything I *could* be doing wrong. Just hang it where did you hang it? and attach it to your receiver Which reciever? How attached? and you should be good to go. Yet the reception I get with this antenna is vastly inferior to what I get with my whip alone. Is there something not mentioned in the instructions that I should know? Please tell me I'm doing something wrong...I don't see how this antenna could perform so badly and yet get such good reviews. It is not possible to give an answer on this question. Please give (much) more details of your setup. MRe I hung the antenna outside, using the provided nylon cords, on my balcony. It's attached to the external antenna jack of a portable receiver (Sony ICF-SW77). I had to use an adaptor so that it would fit the small antenna jack on my Sony, but it's the same adaptor I've used with other antennas, which seem to work okay. Although it is only 16' long that antenna should give as good or better results than the whip on SW. I just looked at a pic of the jacks on the SW77 and I notice that it says 'AM ext ant'... could it be that that jack is only for attaching an external AM antenna rather than one for SW? I have no experience with that receiver at all but I guess I have to ask that question. What does the manual say about that jack, and about hooking up an external SW antenna? dxAce A perfectly reasonable question, but the manual is clear that the antenna you might be attaching to the jack is a SW antenna. They explicitly say it's for LW/MW/SW reception. OK, wasn't sure from the description on the jack itself. Might want to re-check your connections again if you've not yet done so. As I said earlier, you ought to get at least comparable performance to your whip or better from that antenna. Let us know if you get it sorted out. dxAce |
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dxAce wrote in message ...
Steve wrote: dxAce wrote in message ... Steve wrote: "MRe" wrote in message et.nl... "Steve" schreef in bericht om... I've heard good things about this antenna and recently acquired one. The performance of this antenna is terrible. In fact, it's so bad that for the past few days I've been scratching my head, wondering what I could possibly be doing wrong. It's a very simple setup...so simple that I can't think of anything I *could* be doing wrong. Just hang it where did you hang it? and attach it to your receiver Which reciever? How attached? and you should be good to go. Yet the reception I get with this antenna is vastly inferior to what I get with my whip alone. Is there something not mentioned in the instructions that I should know? Please tell me I'm doing something wrong...I don't see how this antenna could perform so badly and yet get such good reviews. It is not possible to give an answer on this question. Please give (much) more details of your setup. MRe I hung the antenna outside, using the provided nylon cords, on my balcony. It's attached to the external antenna jack of a portable receiver (Sony ICF-SW77). I had to use an adaptor so that it would fit the small antenna jack on my Sony, but it's the same adaptor I've used with other antennas, which seem to work okay. Although it is only 16' long that antenna should give as good or better results than the whip on SW. I just looked at a pic of the jacks on the SW77 and I notice that it says 'AM ext ant'... could it be that that jack is only for attaching an external AM antenna rather than one for SW? I have no experience with that receiver at all but I guess I have to ask that question. What does the manual say about that jack, and about hooking up an external SW antenna? dxAce A perfectly reasonable question, but the manual is clear that the antenna you might be attaching to the jack is a SW antenna. They explicitly say it's for LW/MW/SW reception. OK, wasn't sure from the description on the jack itself. Might want to re-check your connections again if you've not yet done so. As I said earlier, you ought to get at least comparable performance to your whip or better from that antenna. Let us know if you get it sorted out. dxAce Thanks. I will. The only thing that makes me doubt that there's a problem with the jack is the fact that this same radio (with the same jack) works very well with other antennas that I occasionally use. I've heard such good reviews of this 'low noise' antenna that I sure hope I can figure out what's wrong. |
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In article ,
beaver wrote: Steve wrote: I hung the antenna outside, using the provided nylon cords, on my balcony. It's attached to the external antenna jack of a portable receiver (Sony ICF-SW77). I had to use an adaptor so that it would fit the small antenna jack on my Sony, but it's the same adaptor I've used with other antennas, which seem to work okay. Steve I've had the same problem with the Sony sw77 with an antenna that works with other radios. I solved the problem by wiring the connector with the tip only. Try an experiment by not inserting connector all the way into radio or trying moving it in and out in diffent locations of radio plug to see if it improves things. If it does then you'll have to wire the connector using tip only and don't wire the sleeve. Sounds like there's a stereo phone jack in the chain that's got a mono plug inserted in it. This shorts the "right" channel to ground. And if left and right are connected together in a stero/mono adapter, it grounds out everything. Same problem Dxluver had a few months ago. Mark Zenier Washington State resident |
The RF Systems antenna is not a Windom at all. It is a transformer fed off
center dipole. As such, and considering it's length, it should give better performance than the whip but nothing earth shattering. "dxAce" wrote in message ... Wouldn't that then defeat the purpose of the way that Mini-Windom is constructed then? If the way the antenna is constructed to use both the inner conductor and outer shield then plugging it in the way you suggest defeats that. One might as well use a random wire at that point. Just a thought. dxAce |
Mark Zenier wrote:
Sounds like there's a stereo phone jack in the chain that's got a mono plug inserted in it. This shorts the "right" channel to ground. And if left and right are connected together in a stero/mono adapter, it grounds out everything. Same problem Dxluver had a few months ago. Reminds me of the jack on the Sangean 909. The normal mono jack for shortwave disconnects the internal am ferrite antenna. With a stereo jack, though you can switch the MW to the long wire also. http://www.gis.net/~acali/MiscSubs/909antjack.gif which is located he http://www.gis.net/~acali/MiscSubs/sangean_ats.htm mike -- __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / / / /\ \/ /\ \/ /\ \/ / /_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ ..let the cat out to reply.. ©Densa International 'Think tanks cleaned cheap' |
beaver wrote in message ...
Steve wrote: "MRe" wrote in message et.nl... "Steve" schreef in bericht .com... I've heard good things about this antenna and recently acquired one. The performance of this antenna is terrible. In fact, it's so bad that for the past few days I've been scratching my head, wondering what I could possibly be doing wrong. It's a very simple setup...so simple that I can't think of anything I *could* be doing wrong. Just hang it where did you hang it? and attach it to your receiver Which reciever? How attached? and you should be good to go. Yet the reception I get with this antenna is vastly inferior to what I get with my whip alone. Is there something not mentioned in the instructions that I should know? Please tell me I'm doing something wrong...I don't see how this antenna could perform so badly and yet get such good reviews. It is not possible to give an answer on this question. Please give (much) more details of your setup. MRe I hung the antenna outside, using the provided nylon cords, on my balcony. It's attached to the external antenna jack of a portable receiver (Sony ICF-SW77). I had to use an adaptor so that it would fit the small antenna jack on my Sony, but it's the same adaptor I've used with other antennas, which seem to work okay. Steve I've had the same problem with the Sony sw77 with an antenna that works with other radios. I solved the problem by wiring the connector with the tip only. Try an experiment by not inserting connector all the way into radio or trying moving it in and out in diffent locations of radio plug to see if it improves things. If it does then you'll have to wire the connector using tip only and don't wire the sleeve. Thanks for the tip. I tried it and was pretty surprised when the signal strength shot up when I had the plug pulled halfway out of the jack! There must be something wrong with the connector, as dxAce suggested several posts back. After getting the mini-windom to work, I fooled around with it a bit. I got the mini because I live in an apartment building in Brooklyn and there's a lot of interference here. The mini-windom is supposed to be a relatively 'quiet' antenna, and I suppose it is. It's performance is better than most of my improvised wire antennas. But, at least if my experience over the past couple of nights is any indication, it's no match at all for the used AOR LA350 active loop I picked up some time ago. (I recommend the LA350 highly for apartment dwellers. It's very good at nulling interference--maybe not as good as the (very expensive) Wellbrook loops, which I've not experimented with, but very good.) Thanks to everyone who offered me suggestions. I appreciate the help! Steve |
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