[Milsurplus] BC-611 Operational Question

[Bob Camp]

Hi

If you are standing on the ground, you couple to it pretty well on 80M. That helps your antenna more than a little bit. 

If you are floating along under a parachute at thousands of feet up … not much coupling to the ground. 

For added fun: While you are dropping through the air, try tweaking the antenna loading for best field strength :) :) :). Then see how much you changed things.

The other very real issue with these radios is that the batteries have a finite life. It’s not alway obvious just how “close to empty” you might be. 

Bob

> On Oct 3, 2024, at 3:42 AM, Hubert Miller <Kargo_cult at msn.com> wrote:
> 
> So altho the 611 antenna is ~1/80th wavelength, it is not like really a 'point source', and that the polarization of the handheld is important ?
> I do see that there will be a null directly above ( and below ) the vertical antenna.
> 
> I read some years back, that someone had been trying out a 611 radio, this is postwar, and they happened to try touching the 611 antenna to the base of a metal flagpole.
> This notably increased the signal strength, which translates to distance, i suppose. I still do not understand how that would work. In the radio you have a loading coil working 
> with apretty specific low capacitance antenna. I suppose this assumes the metal flagpole was not perfectly grounded and that its capacitance was still in the 2 or low 3 digits
> capacity, so that the percentage of wavelength of this new antenna addition overcame any mistuning of the output circuit. 
> 
> I friend has a 611 and told me he can hear a Chinese SW broadcaster on it, so it's not the receiver that limits the working distance.
> -Hue Miller 
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