True, but there's a serious catch, at least with some portables - there's a small amplifier attached to the whip, so adding 50 foot of wire to the whip might increase the chances of overloading.
In addition there's a side benefit to these smaller loops - they're less sensitive to some types of noise sources. In an indoor enviornment, that can be a plus 73 Mike
Mike,
Would that indoor active antenna work better for me than my 50' outdoor wire?
John
Any antenna outdoors is going to outperform an indoor antenna in terms of hearing stations, no question. However, let's be clear here - such a wire is also very susceptible to hearing all sorts of noise from virtually anything in the immediate area of the home - so in that sense, your reception is somewhat compromised. In addition, the possible overloading (and this is very dependent on where you are geographically - East Coast listeners have a much higher chance of this then West Coasters, as well as the time of day and frequency) can cause you to hear signals where you normally shouldn't. You didn't say which Sony you had, but some of them have a RF gain control that would mitigate this to some degree.
Loops typically have a lower gain, which means less overloading, however you would likely hear somewhat less. However, since they reject certain kinds of noise, the lower signal strength is compensated for by having a
cleaner signal. This is what you really should go for, even if you are just doing some casual listening. Don't make the mistake of thinking louder is better. Sometimes this simply isn't true.
It is something of a tradeoff, and it's up to the person to make the call. If it were me, and I could have something outdoors, putting something outside wins hands down. But there's lots of folks - myself included - where this isn't possible, and loops are a good next choice.
73 Mike
