In article ,
"Verstaldin" wrote:

"littbarski" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hi there,

I really don't know much about shortwave / DX, but I have bought the
Siemens RK 661 (Sangean 808) some weeks ago. Now I have time to use it
an get used to it.
So it works best with an external antenna. I have a compact antenna
from Grundig (came with a YB400), but this don't work very good. Now i
tested a lot and found out that it works pretty good with a normal
stereo jack extension cable (4 meters), that I put on some good
positions in my room.
Is this a known "antenna trick"? I mean, I don't know anything about
shortwave antennas, so I would like to know if - with this kind of
nearly NO effort - there is another way to improve this solution I
found a little? or ist this already all I can do, if I don't want (and
can't) build a "real" antenna.


The short answer is that anything that works for you is OK. With a portable
radio such as that, really big antennas are generally counterproductive
because the radio amplifies whatever comes in on an antenna so much that if
you add too much wire, you end up overloading the radio which causes
distorted sound and signals coming in where they don't actually exist as well
as a problem of very strong signals overwhelming weak ones you might want to
hear. If you have any way of grounding the radio, that will help reception.
Listening at night on the lower bands (9 mhz and below) should yeild lots of
good listening, and in the daytime, the upper bands might be more productive.
Good listening

Verstaldin gave you good information.

If you are not having an issue with local noise preventing you from
hearing stations you want to hear then keep using what you have.

Chances are that the noise interfering with reception will be greater
using the AC adapter instead of batteries. If the noise is not a
problem then you will most likely notice that the signals come in
stronger with the AC adapter in use because it will create a virtual
ground with the single wire antenna you are currently using. This
single wire is really half an antenna where ground is the other half.

This single wire antenna, if you are using the external antenna jack,
is most likely connected to the tip of the jack. The antenna jack
barrel is probably the radio ground so what you could do is make a
dipole antenna connecting an additional wire to the antenna jack barrel
tab inside the jack. String the additional wire in the opposite
direction of the original wire connected to the jack tip. This dipole
antenna is a complete antenna that does not need a ground. Using this
antenna should give you an improvement in signal level using the
batteries and might also cut down on the noise using the AC adapter.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California