[Milsurplus] BC-611 Operational Question

[Hubert Miller]

BTW, the topic "BC-611" inspires these thoughts:

1- Would a "draggie ground" wire enhance the transmission range ?
2- Some years back another ham fellow wrote that he had once touched the BC-611 antenna to a metal flagpole and this had enhanced the transmission range.
He did not say anything about how the flagpole was grounded or if, or any othe specifices. What think ?
3- Remember that guy, actually a ham radio guy, who sold a couple BC-611 transistorized by him, sold these maybe 10 - 15 years ago ? He declined to answer
my polite email inquiry. I have the partial doc, but only has the receiver mods, which were not what you would really call "smart", as it used JFETs throughout. 
I was kind of surprised the receiver didn't "take off" on its own, if you know what i mean, unneutralized RF amps. I suppose you could do the same dumb JFET
conversion of the xmtr, but how do you develop any power like that, above maybe 80 mW INPUT ? So i am wondering, if you did this, how do you get a high
impedance modulating device, using only the original 611 components ? 

I think my friend, with experience with both radios, said the MAB had a better antenna but no RF amp, while the BC-611 had the RF stage but a less effective
antenna. The fixed antenna was surely a design fault. I recall being shown a BC-611 that had been thrown away, abandoned in a ditch in the Nederlands, 
because the antenna was broken off.
-Hue Miller