Try turning the AGC off, turn the RF Gain way down and the AF Gain up
considerably. Then advance the RF gain until the signal is just copyable in
head phones. Repeat for the two antenna conditions. Make sure your audio
levels are equal.

Military and Ham operators operate this way and claim a SUBJECTIVE increase
in signal to noise over that of a wide open receiver. Technically this
should not be true, Signal to noise ratio should not be reduced by
decreasing receiver gain

But the human ear with its threshold levels, logarithmic hearing, and brain
filtering may account for this.

--
Caveat Lector



"Bill Ogden" wrote in message
...
My observation was based entirely on my ears --- a very subjective
measurement I know. However, the effect was rather striking. It might
have
been due to the high noise crashes (when the beam was tuned to the "right"
band) that create more subjective interference due to overloading the ear.

I have heard from others now who mention that using the "wrong" antenna
sometimes appears to improve signal readability. (Of course, this could
be
due to polarization differences, etc, etc, that are probably not involved
with the SteppIR setup.)

It is all very subjective and probably not worth a technical debate.
However it would be tempting to utilize the effect if the band changes on
the SteppIR were just a bit faster ---- an if I could remember to retune
the
antenna every time before transmitting.

Like most of us, I have noted many times that the ability to clearly copy
a
signal (i.e., a comfortable S/N situation) is often not correlated with S
meter readings of the signal or the noise.

Bill
W2WO