To all: I am a amateur SWL and request your expertise with antennas. I
currently own a desktop receiver attached to an indoor active antenna.
While this setup works alright, I would prefer to try my luck with a
traditional longwire antenna. Can anyone answer the following questions?

1. Is there any real difference in reception quality if a string a longwire
through my attic compared to running it from the chimney to a tree?

2. If placed in my attic, do I need to 'slope' it downward through the
rafters?

3. My current active antenna is a MFJ 1020B. Is it possible to convert
this into a antenna tuner by removing the vertical antenna currently
attached to it and running the longwire antenna lead into the 1020B, then
running a coaxial connection from the 1020B to the back of the receiver?

Thanks for all your help and I would appreciate any product recommendations.

RM

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 18:57:47 -0400, "Richard Mosier"
wrote:
1. Is there any real difference in reception quality if a string a longwire
through my attic compared to running it from the chimney to a tree?

Some. Depends on frequency and length (comparable to wavelength).
This is not as important as it is in getting away from the house as a
source of noise. If you encounter no noise with an attic antenna,
then you are doing well.

2. If placed in my attic, do I need to 'slope' it downward through the
rafters?

No.

3. My current active antenna is a MFJ 1020B. Is it possible to convert
this into a antenna tuner by removing the vertical antenna currently
attached to it and running the longwire antenna lead into the 1020B, then
running a coaxial connection from the 1020B to the back of the receiver?

Hi Richard,

The manual is vague here. You can try it, certainly, but the
preselector may be overwhelmed by out of band AM signals (recognized
by a strange "deafness" to signals you should get), or it may
oscillate (the manual warns of this). If either occur, time to think
of obtaining or building a simple tuner.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

The manual is vague here. You can try it, certainly, but the
preselector may be overwhelmed by out of band AM signals (recognized
by a strange "deafness" to signals you should get), or it may
oscillate (the manual warns of this). If either occur, time to think
of obtaining or building a simple tuner.

I have this problem in the VHF band, due to a local broadcaster on 104.1
I use a stub filter, but in your case, at low frequencies, a series resonant
circuit would cut that down nicely.