In article . com,
wrote:
It's been hot as heck in NYC for the last couple of days. Yesterday, to
escape the heat, I spent much of the afternoon in Prospect Park,
where's there's usually a nice breeze and cooler temperatures. On a
whim I brought along 100 ft of wire and my HF-150. I laid the wire out
in a 'snake' configuration, right on the ground, and was pretty
impressed with the results. I was in a quiet spot there in the Park.
Even so, when people describe this as a low noise antenna, they aren't
kidding. Using a couple of tree limbs, I raised the wire up about 7-8
ft. The increase in noise was noticeable, and the s/n ratio was a
little worse.

I realize that the classic snake antenna uses coax, not wire. However,
ordinary old insulated wire sure seemed to work well for me yesterday.

I've read around on the web about these antennas and their low noise
characteristics, but I'd be interested to hear about any experiments
the readers of this group have done. I'm especially curious about how
the presence of metal objects in the immediate vicinity of a snake
antenna would affect its performance. For example, suppose you took
200ft of insulated wire and 'stiched' it through the bottow row of
'links' on a very long chain link fence. I can't imagine a stealthier
antenna than this, but would the fence muck things up?

Back last fall, I ran a snake antenna (60-80 feet of 24 ga. insulated
wire) through the bushes back into the woods behind my house. (This goes
to the high impedance, 500 ohm, input of my R-1000). The idea was a
total stealth antenna, down in the ground cover.

That seemed ok for a while. Then I decided to go walkabout with my
Grundig FR-200 at the same time as I was listening with my R-1000 on
wireless headphones to Radio Australia on 17795 at 4 PM local time.
When your $40 radio picks up better off the whip than a tabletop with
80 feet of wire, you know you've got antenna problems. Like damp ground
and snake antennas and anything above 6 MHz being mutually incompatible.

Tossing the same wire 20 feet up into the trees, and 17 MHz went
from below S1, down in the mud, to a reasonable S4.

Similar results this spring. (I was getting a bunch of interference
from the house remodel next door. My guess is that construction guys
must have done something to the phone wiring on a DSL line or broke
a ground connection on digital TV cable. Sounded like broadband
data comm crap all over). I ran about 80-100 feet about 3 feet off
the ground in the opposite direction from the first antenna. The
interference was much reduced, but it was much poorer than the other
antenna above 9 MHz.

Dampness in the ground and vegetation may be a factor. Here in
Seattle, you can count on that for about 9 months of the year.

Mark Zenier
Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)