On Mon, 4 Oct 2004 21:19:00 -0500, Michael Lawson wrote
(in article ):

I have a confession to make; I've always wanted an outdoor
antenna, but I was never either allowed to (when I was a kid)
or wasn't pratical do run one. Well, I now have the ability
to run one outside, but there are some questions I have about
some of the gagetry that is available these days.



Why not start out easy?

Grab one of the ten dollar RadioShack 66 footers - either the one with
the insulators and lead (bell wire) or only the twisted copper.

The "random length" is really, pretty much, the baseline against which
all the others are measured but it's also just a darn good antenna, in
and of itself.

As far as lightning protection goes, the best protection is the lead-in
out the window and screwed onto a ground rod (or a coax connector that
is melded into the ground rod if you're usin' coax).

Here, in Central Mississippi, we have very violent storms and it's a
bad idea to keep an antenna connected for several months a year. I
use(d) a ceramic based knife switch (a BIG one) for normal use and
threw te thing out the window when the air had "that feeling".


Gray Shockley
----------------
DX-392 DX-398
RX-320 DX-396
CCradio+ w/RS Loop
Justice AM Antenna
Torus Tuner (3-13 MHz)
Select-A-Tenna
---------------------
Vicksburg, MS US




Since I'm planning on running a random wire until I can figure
out a more permanent location for a trap antenna that I'll
build (assuming that I still have that old article from Pop Comm
(or was it Audio?) lying around), I'm not so concerned about
the antenna itself as some of the other goodies.

First, the coax. I noticed that Rat Shack was running a special
on their RG-58U coax for $0.11/ft, but I also know that RG-8 is
has better attenuation numbers. My run of coax is about
60-70 ft or so (at least initially, I'll probably remove some of
the built-in slack in my estimates once I'm satisfied with where
the antenna will be). Should I worry about attenuation for the
HF bands enough to use the RG-8 over the RG-58??

Second, a lightning arrestor. Are those Alpha Delta Transitraps
as good as advertised, or should I stick with a regular gas
discharge variety??

Third, has anyone run an external antenna to their Sat 800?? I'm
curious as to your setup, since it's a plastic case and the old
ground connection that I was used to on my old Icom R-70
isn't around, so I was wondering if anyone bothers to try to
ground the outer jacket of the coax. (Yeah, I know that that
ground on the R-70 was for the casing, and that this means we'll
open a can of worms here, but I figure I'd ask anyway.)

--Mike L.