In article ,
beaver wrote:
Steve wrote:
I hung the antenna outside, using the provided nylon cords, on my
balcony. It's attached to the external antenna jack of a portable
receiver (Sony ICF-SW77). I had to use an adaptor so that it would fit
the small antenna jack on my Sony, but it's the same adaptor I've used
with other antennas, which seem to work okay.

Steve

I've had the same problem with the Sony sw77 with an antenna that works
with other radios. I solved the problem by wiring the connector with
the tip only. Try an experiment by not inserting connector all the way
into radio or trying moving it in and out in diffent locations of radio
plug to see if it improves things. If it does then you'll have to wire
the connector using tip only and don't wire the sleeve.

Sounds like there's a stereo phone jack in the chain that's got a
mono plug inserted in it. This shorts the "right" channel to ground.
And if left and right are connected together in a stero/mono adapter,
it grounds out everything. Same problem Dxluver had a few months ago.

Mark Zenier Washington State resident

The RF Systems antenna is not a Windom at all. It is a transformer fed off
center dipole. As such, and considering it's length, it should give better
performance than the whip but nothing earth shattering.

"dxAce" wrote in message
...


Wouldn't that then defeat the purpose of the way that Mini-Windom is
constructed then?

If the way the antenna is constructed to use both the inner conductor and
outer shield then plugging it in the way you
suggest defeats that.

One might as well use a random wire at that point.

Just a thought.

dxAce

Mark Zenier wrote:

Sounds like there's a stereo phone jack in the chain that's got a
mono plug inserted in it. This shorts the "right" channel to ground.
And if left and right are connected together in a stero/mono adapter,
it grounds out everything. Same problem Dxluver had a few months ago.

Reminds me of the jack on the Sangean 909. The normal mono jack for
shortwave disconnects the internal am ferrite antenna. With a stereo
jack, though you can switch the MW to the long wire also.


http://www.gis.net/~acali/MiscSubs/909antjack.gif

which is located he

http://www.gis.net/~acali/MiscSubs/sangean_ats.htm




mike

--
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
/ /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /
/ /\ \/ /\ \/ /\ \/ /
/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/

..let the cat out to reply..

©Densa International
'Think tanks cleaned cheap'

beaver wrote in message ...
Steve wrote:
"MRe" wrote in message et.nl...

"Steve" schreef in bericht
.com...

I've heard good things about this antenna and recently acquired one.
The performance of this antenna is terrible. In fact, it's so bad that
for the past few days I've been scratching my head, wondering what I
could possibly be doing wrong. It's a very simple setup...so simple
that I can't think of anything I *could* be doing wrong. Just hang it

where did you hang it?


and attach it to your receiver

Which reciever? How attached?

and you should be good to go. Yet the

reception I get with this antenna is vastly inferior to what I get
with my whip alone.

Is there something not mentioned in the instructions that I should
know? Please tell me I'm doing something wrong...I don't see how this
antenna could perform so badly and yet get such good reviews.


It is not possible to give an answer on this question.
Please give (much) more details of your setup.

MRe


I hung the antenna outside, using the provided nylon cords, on my
balcony. It's attached to the external antenna jack of a portable
receiver (Sony ICF-SW77). I had to use an adaptor so that it would fit
the small antenna jack on my Sony, but it's the same adaptor I've used
with other antennas, which seem to work okay.

Steve

I've had the same problem with the Sony sw77 with an antenna that works
with other radios. I solved the problem by wiring the connector with
the tip only. Try an experiment by not inserting connector all the way
into radio or trying moving it in and out in diffent locations of radio
plug to see if it improves things. If it does then you'll have to wire
the connector using tip only and don't wire the sleeve.

Thanks for the tip. I tried it and was pretty surprised when the
signal strength shot up when I had the plug pulled halfway out of the
jack! There must be something wrong with the connector, as dxAce
suggested several posts back.

After getting the mini-windom to work, I fooled around with it a bit.
I got the mini because I live in an apartment building in Brooklyn and
there's a lot of interference here. The mini-windom is supposed to be
a relatively 'quiet' antenna, and I suppose it is. It's performance is
better than most of my improvised wire antennas. But, at least if my
experience over the past couple of nights is any indication, it's no
match at all for the used AOR LA350 active loop I picked up some time
ago. (I recommend the LA350 highly for apartment dwellers. It's very
good at nulling interference--maybe not as good as the (very
expensive) Wellbrook loops, which I've not experimented with, but very
good.)

Thanks to everyone who offered me suggestions. I appreciate the help!

Steve