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J.B. Wood · February 22nd 10, 12:44 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.antenna

On 2/22/2010 3:38 AM, wrote:
On Feb 21, 3:04 pm, "Jeff wrote:
Trying to improve my reception from Chicago with baseball season
approaching. I'm about 100 miles sse in Indiana. I ran about 75' RG-6 from
my radio across the attic and outdoors to a tree. I had maybe 10 extra feet
of coax so I wrapped it around the tree. I strung about 50' of #9 steel wire
between 2 trees going east/west about 15' above ground and attached the
copper conductor to it. I terminated the coax shield at the tree with a
ground rod. At the radio I attached the shield to the ground terminal and
the center cu conductor to the other am external antenna terminal.
It greatly improved my reception I get all the major Chicago sports
channels, but the one I was most interested in 670 is the worst. What all
did I do wrong and what can I do to improve 670?

I suspect you would be much better off using a small receiving loop.
But there are many variables such as time of day, etc.
For instance good reception of that station 100 miles away should be
a piece of cake in the daytime if you used a loop, and using ground
wave reception.

Hello, and a loop should be worthwhile. I've seen folks selling MW
receiving loops at Hamfests that consisted of a requisite number of
turns installed inside a plastic (mini hula-hoop) loop with a variable
capacitor for tuning. These loops were intended to work with a portable
radio (the radio is placed inside the loop). It is remarkable how the
sensitivity of a cheap portable radio is increased by the addition of a
simple tuned loop. This configuration should allow usable reception of
a 50kW AM station 100 mi. distant. BTW, the WSCR AM 670 website
indicates they also stream on the web. Sincerely, and 73s from N4GGO,

--
John Wood (Code 5520) e-mail:

Naval Research Laboratory
4555 Overlook Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20375-5337