Plaaying around with the DX398 I have found
that a "strong" singal is much better then a weak
one. I just ran 100' of wire and laid it on the newly
fallen snow. Wtih no matching tranformer. (as an aside,
antennas work much better if errected in bad weather,
in fact the worst the weather the better the performance!).
By winding the wire in and out, I have it on a military spool,
I found that the DX398 is much happier with a strong signal.
I don't have access to equipment to measure the exact signal
required, and I don't think the ARRL lab comparison of the
DX398 with other portables adressed that issue.
And yes my wife is convinced that I am insane.
But she willingly helps me with thes odd experiments.
At some point I am going to have to errect an antenna "just for her".
I am just glad she hasn't grabed one of my R2000s!
(My original R2000 is showing it's age, I took it on one too
many picnics and I hope to restore it in the near future. The tuning
has gotten very touchy and I tend to use it for a dedicated WWV
receiver at the moment.)
Terry