Thanks for all who responded thus far (and sorry to be such a wellspring of
newbie questons).

Yes, I must confess that there is no lightning arrestor installed as of yet!
I was aware that one should install such a device at the time I put up the
antenna, but I didn't have one handy, nor did I feel the need to invest in
one. I was thinking that in the late fall/winter we really don't get any
lightning here (north-east PA) and therefore I wouldn't really need a
lightning arrestor until the Spring. I'm sure I'm probably wrong on this,
though, as it was mainly a product of my Scots heritage getting the best of
me.

I guess it would be helpful to include some more specifics about what radios
Im trying to feed with this antenna. Thus far, I have accumulated an
A****er Kent "big box" Model 20, an A****er Kent 55-C (chassis only), an
RCA Radiola 18, and a homebrew regen. This is my latest project.

It uses a '36 screen grid tube as detector and a 6F8G as dual-stage audio
driving a loudspeaker through an overly large Hammond OPT. So far I've only
wound a coil for BC band and this thing works amazingly well. I plan on
making some smaller coils for short wave (hopefully the solar storm stuff
wont be long in staying).

I also have future plans for a Grigsby-Grunow that was given to me to fix
up, but it's on the distant horizon as of yet.

So far nobody has complained about the large pile of radio-related crap in
the sun porch, but Im sure it's a matter of time. I will probably have to
route the antenna lead-in through a wall or two and around some bends and
twists to get it into the workshop in the basement. I guess I was assuming
I should use coax for this, but apparently not, from what everyone here is
saying. I'm not as concerned about noise as I am about possible signal
loss. Is this something to even be concerned about with a plain old
insulated stranded wire lead-in routed through walls and such?

I'm still new at this RF stuff (being a relatively recent convert from the
realm of "AF"), so please bear with me, and thanks for all the helpful tips
and suggestions!


Dave