ryan wiehle wrote in message ...
Lucky wrote:

Hi guys!

I live on the 23rd floor of a building so I can't use the earth
directly for the ground.
The options in my "radio room" are the ground from the electrical
sockets and that's about it.

I've heard I can roll out 10ft of tin foil on the floor as a ground
{that's out}, or, use the window frames as a good ground. As far as I
can tell, the window frame looks to be aluminum or some sort of alloy.

Have any of you heard of using a window frame as a ground? I think I
read it in this NG that someone recommended it and was using it for
his ground. I've been using the ground from an electrical outlet.

But being that so many people live in the building that use
appliances and other plugged in items all day and night, I sometimes
get what seems like bad feedback affecting the receiver.

So what do you think of the window frame for the ground then? I
welcome any other options I can use in a room very far from a direct
earth ground. The bathroom pipes are all the way across the room
separated by a wall. Not easy to get to.

Thanks for any help
Lucky

hi, at that height the metal window frame makes a good
antenna, but not a ground. use the electical outlet ground for
a ground potential

Hi Ryan.

You hit that right on the head. One of the other posters stated the window
frame would make an antenna NOT a ground.
So I decided to try it as one. I connected the wire to the antenna terminal
on the R75 from the ground.

I couldn't believe it!
What a good antenna it made. Most of the time the S-Meter was peaking higher
with it then the dipole. Even though the noise floor was increased in some
cases, the signal was much more loud, clear and audible.

In a couple cases I needed to turn on the pre amp to hear the signal with
the dipole but with the window frame antenna it didn't need it at all! Yes
I realize that certain size dipoles will limit some frequencies it's not
perfected for, but this setup brought in better signals across the board
most of the time. Of course there was few frequencies it just was terrible
at.

Now if you use the R75's options, you can remove most of that extra noise.
I'd rather have a audible signal that I can listen to with some noise then
one so weak you can't interpret what is being said.

So I would say this ground experimentation exposed a pretty decent optional
antenna! Being up so high makes that frame a real signal magnet. What a
great find for someone who can't put up outside antennas or perhaps would
get better results then what they are using now.

So what kind of antenna do you think this rectangle aluminum frame makes?
What could it be compared to?

As for the electrical ground, I realize it's more of a "safety" ground then
a RF ground as one poster pointed out. So by using the electrical sockets
ground, what am I actually grounding? The radio itself, the antennas or
both? I'm figuring just the radio from lightning strikes or static?

Thanks
Lucky