Robert Ross writes: "First of all I'd like to confirm what a few others have stated about the Effect of one's Hand on the Radio. I too find that when the hand is cupped around the radio.....it has a definite effect on the reception of some stations. Sometimes it will add a nulling effect.....other times it will increase the strength of the signal....weird???? Who would have thought you could use your fingers as directors for the tiny little Ferrite Beam inside these Radios????
The above (accumulated) comments triggered a 50+-year-old memory of an incident involving a finger on the antenna terminal of a primitive wire antenna I used in Corvallis, Oregon, in the spring of 1956. The NRC had scheduled a DX program from KPPC in Pasadena, California, on 1240, and its signal was there, QRM'd by the all-nighter in Chicago. Also on the air, with a special celebration of a religious holiday, was XEBN in Ciudad Delicias, Chihuahua. By placing my finger on the terminal where my wire connected to a wire that went to the radio (an ancient Hallicrafters Sky Raider or Sky Buddy or something with Sky in the name, maybe an SX-15 or 16), I was able to more-or-less choose which station was dominant, KPPC or XEBN. (My memory is hazier about the equipment than it is about the reception.) Another memory ... the term "hand capacitance" ... which I cannot define. Still another memory ... in the mid-1960s, when I was in Pampa, Texas, living in a garage apartment, DX-ing with a Hammarlund HQ-160, I had success that amazed me on medium wave, bringing in stations from more than 50 countries in all continents, with a truly jerry-built (or is it jury-rigged) antenna system. I had a wire running under the eaves on one side of the former garage connected to one antenna terminal and half the lead-in from a disconnected TV antenna atop a tower on the garage attached to the other lead-in. With this configuration, I taped and confirmed such stations as Algeria-890 (QRM'd by a Colombian all-nighter), JOKD-1370 (back when the NHK stations were giving English call-letter IDs at the top of the hour), the station in Sydney, Australia, on 950, QRM'd by Buenos Aires (which didn't verify a report), and a bunch of Europeans, topped by Ireland on 566, which did me the courtesy of closely monitoring the fragmented tape I sent them and identifying the speci! fic program I'd recorded. In Pampa, neither finger-nulling nor hand capacitance were involved, but I add that information to show that configurations accidentally "designed" by pure luck could, in the glory days when most of the all-nighters turned off their transmitters at midnight Sunday, could produce fun results. (Aha. I just Googled "Hallicrafters SX-15" and found a picture of my old radio, the SX-15 "Sky Challenger." I regret that I sold that radio and a BC-342-N to the Chamber of Commerce manager in Hereford, Texas in 1958, after I'd bought my HQ-160.) http://oldradios.co.nz/gallery/anchors/HALLICRAFTERS%20SX-15%20Sky%20Challngr.html<http://oldradios.co.nz/gallery/anchors/HALLICRAFTERS%20SX-15%20Sky%20Challngr.html> Qal R. Mann, Krumdgeon _______________________________________________ IRCA mailing list [email protected] http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/irca Opinions expressed in messages on this mailing list are those of the original contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its editors, publishing staff, or officers For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org To Post a message: [email protected]
