Monitoring Times Reference Library

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jaymot

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I happened to find a nice, free online resource of information today:
Monitoring Times Reference Library
and specifically, and germane to this forum
http://www.monitoringtimes.com/antennabook.pdf

Under the topic of hidden antennas in that antenna book I saw that some people have resorted to all kinds of things including using disused telephone or electric wiring. That reminded me that a few months ago, I'd switched from regular POTS service and ADSL to a FTTH (fiber to the home) Internet connection with VoIP, and the installer left the old telephone wiring and jack in place. That gave me an idea. I disconnected the wiring from inside the jack, stripped the "tip" connector and soldered it to the "tip" of a 1/8 inch (3.5mm) plug and pludded it in to the antenna jack of my radio. The radio's supposed to use a monaural two-conductor 3.5mm plug for its external antenna connection but all I could find were 3-conductor (tip, ring and sleeve) stereo plugs such as used for earbud headphones and the like, but I thought I'd give it a try. WOW! I'm going to have fun! I wonder how many meters or kilometers of antenna I have now? :D

Anyway, I thought I'd share a nice reference library with y'all.
 

bb911

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Sep 30, 2006
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Thanks for the info. I'm so old that I got Monitoring Times in my mailbox back in the 1980's. The days of the BC 250, 300, 220, 200xlt, and Regency's, etc..
 

jaymot

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Yeah, I used to subscribe too. I'm so old that I remember the excitement when Radio Shack started selling those Sangean SW portables. I even bought one, tried it for a few days, and took it back for a refund. I was living not far from a hilltop that had a bunch of commercial broadcaster's towers on top and almost all I could hear on SW on the Sangean were spurs from local AM MW stations. PLL and digital displays were the cutting-edge tech back then. And re: scanners, my top-of-the-line Realistic Pro-2005 stopped working properly for me when my city switched to a trunking network one day, and I had to get a Uniden Trunk-Tracker to be able to still enjoy police and fire comm traffic. (There was nothing wrong with the Realistic: it still worked great for non-trunked systems (and still does as far as I know: I gave it to my brother-in-law, along with the Uniden, when I moved to Asia.) My very first scanner was a 10-channel Bearcat crystal set that still used neon bulbs instead of LEDs. Got that from the dead shelf of a radio repair shop I was working at and had to fix it to make it work (it had some burned-out bulbs and wouldn't scan.) At least I had a good source of second-hand crystals available at the shop.
 
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spongella

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Echo the sentiments of those so old they remember MT magazine when it came in the mail, it had some great writers and Bob was the best. FYI, The Spectrum Monitor is a great on-line magazine that started publishing when MT ceased, lots of great columns and articles.
 

ka3jjz

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Better download what you want while you can. No doubt when the domain expires, it won't be renewed. Mike
 

Boombox

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Sep 2, 2012
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Ah, yes. I remember magazines. And when they didn't cost an arm and a leg.

Now, I see a magazine rack, and wonder how long any of them will last.
 
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