I put an amplified antenna into a friends attic. One station PBS was 45 miles away and only coming in now and then for short bursts. I made an antenna wire as show in the picture.
http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/zpt/temp/antenna.jpg The wire boosted the signal and PBS now comes in solid. It attaches to the screw on the back of the square plastic antenna. This is such a simple idea, a bent wire. I have a vendor page at Amazon. I wonder if it would be worth while making antenna wires for sale, They would be tuned to one specific UHF channel. They are small as the UHF frequencies are high. They offer a gain of about 6db. I could have the agency for the blind make them if they sold well. That would help them out. I am not sure if a simple thing like this has any market potential. http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/zpt/temp/antenna.jpg While working on my Radiola III I picked up marijuana grow lights in the neighborhood. Why was the Radiola tuned radio freq set and the regen set so sensitive to this radiation? It appears that the have a broad band reception pattern and pick up a little across the entire mid range radio band. I could make a loop of wire with a low Q that capitalize on this effect. It would have a simple diode detector followed by a filter that would let through 120 hz signals. An LED would light when it picked up the grow light signal. I could market these to the police. I find ideas under every rock now. Soon or later I will return to on topic. Frank Z
