Modifying tecsun R-9012

[jmc92]

So, I'm thinking of getting this little shortwave. And putting it in a small antique cathedral style wooden housing.
I would also like to increase it's strength.

I'm not sure if this is the right forum area to ask about moving the variable capacitors and potentiometers of the circuit board and onto the front of the wood housing, but another question I have is about the signal strength.

Would attaching multiple antennas to the one antenna wire increase the strength?
I tested this principle on a much cheaper handheld radio, attaching the 2, 15 inch antennas I have to it's original, and then overpowering it by an extra AA (it blew up of course) but before it went out, I got half a minute of the strongest signal I've heard out of any radios in the house so far.

 

[ab3a]

First of all, welcome to Radio Reference!

Before you modify your radio, find out how well it works. Make sure that you understand what does so that you know if you have improved or degraded things.

Usually, moving those parts off of the circuit board is asking for trouble. The radio has amplifiers and grounding issues that weren't designed for this sort of thing. I'm not saying it can't work but basically, you're on your own. This is not like a classic tube radio.

As for antennas, please be careful. Most radios were designed for their whip antennas alone. Adding an antenna to it might not be the smartest move because it will actually present more signals than the radio can handle. In extreme cases it may actually destroy the first amplifier stage of the receiver. But even if it doesn't, the amount of signal will cause distortion in later stages of the receiver. This causes bogus signals to appear where there really are none.

The latter wouldn't be too bad except that those bogus signals may very well present themselves on top of the station you're trying to listen to.

In other words, especially with less expensive portable radios, adding an external antenna of any sort is not usually recommended.

Good Luck!