"Scott Mayo" wrote in message
om...
I'm thinking of dusting off my shortwave receiver and putting an
antenna in my attic. I have about 29' of horisontal space to play
with
(in the most convenient direction, which runs more or less NE-SW, in
Massachusetts), or about 40' if I want to put more work into it.
Verically I have about 8', more in some places. I'm considering a
T2FD
antenna, as I expect to listen across a lot of bands and I don't
have
lots of space. Mostly I'm after BBC (which I guess is now a distance
station, mutter), time signals, and whatever news broadcasts and
music
aren't All American All The Time. No real interest in DXing. No
interest in transmitting.

Since I don't want to spend the next month tacking up and taking
down
the antenna, I'd kind of like to get it more or less right the first
time. So I have some questions about T2FD's.

1. My receiver is a Sangean portable (I think the 800a), with an odd
(RCA-style) external antenna jack. I understand that the antenna
impedience should match the receiver's. Will 300 ohm TV wire
soldered
to an RCA jack work? Should I be looking at 75 or 50 ohm cable? (The
300 ohm TV cable has the advantage of being already in the wall).

I suspect (don't know, but suspect) that it's a 50 ohm
input. Either way, making a step down transformer
will make a difference. I've done one for the random
wire I have running outside (based on the advice here),
and it really does do the trick. Try the following link
and look at John Bryant's MS Word article:

http://www.dxing.info/equipment/

As for the other questions, I'll leave that to the others
who have had more experimentation time to work
with.

--Mike L.