How to replicate hand antenna

[dragon48]

Mods - If this is in the wrong forum, please move it.

I am having this issue with my AOR 8200 MK111, but have had the exact issue with other scanners:

In A.M. mode, when manually scanning the shortwave bands, I can get a lot of signals—not too strong, but with recognizable audio . It appears thought that my hand is acting as an antenna, because, when I stay on the channel and put the scanner down, I almost completely lose the station, receiving mostly static.

I'm using the stock BNC antenna. Clipping on a shortwave pull out cord doesn't help. I don't want to have to have to to hold on to the unit jsut to get reception. How can I replicate whatever my holding to the unit does?

 

[ka3jjz]

The likelihood is high that your body is acting as a ground plane.

The solution? A company once sold something called the 'Tiger Tail' that was nothing more than a clip lead that formed a small ground plane for the other side of the antenna (as I recall, this was for a 2 meter or 2 /440 Mhz ham handheld). There's no reason why you couldn't replicate this effect using a small ring connector on one end of a wire, put that around the plug on the scanner, then put the antenna back on

How long of a wire should you use? Well, I'm going to assume here that you're using the 8200 stationery and not carrying it around. Probably 30-40 foot would work just fine here - you could throw it behind a desk or something to prevent folks from tripping on it. It would be totally portable, too. It would, of course, be correspondingly shorter for your other non-HF scanners.

Mike