No, it wasn't Churchill. George Bernard Shaw said "England and America are two countries separated by a common language."

160 meters has forever been "top band" to the old timers.  It might have had something to do with the early days of radio, where most of the communications were on frequencies well below 200 meters, and 160 was at the top of the spectrum back then. To avoid ambiguity, can we just refer to frequencies as being high or low, and leave bands out of it?

That begs to ask, what's the correct terminology, valves or tubes? The Brits would have one answer, we Americans another. Same as with wireless and radio, torch and flashlight, flashlight and electronic flash, flat and apartment, lift and elevator, boot and trunk, etc., etc. Was it Churchill who said "The only thing separating us is our common language?"

Consider buying high-current wire from a welding supply store. The wire is relatively flexible, so it's easy to snake around inside the car (to avoid road wear and contamination). Use the largest size you are comfortable with; you may later want to switch to a more demanding rig or amplifier, or add additional accessories, say a motorized impedance matcher, that could use the extra current-carrying capability.

The additional information helps a lot! I once got near Don Johnson's automatic screwdriver antenna and was surprised when it automatically retuned itself to my presence! Don recommends using a dip meter to do the initial tune-up and cautions against parking near overhead wires, metal gutters, roofing, tall fences, or any other large metal objects. Also do not park near any other antenna that is resonant on or near the frequency you are checking. He also suggests that you completely disconnect the coax and any matching devices while finding antenna resonance. When you reattach the coax you'll find that the frequency has shifted a few hundred hertz, usually up.

If you can find a copy of Don's book, "40 Years of HF Mobileering," get it! After all, Don invented the screwdriver antenna.

While I'm not familiar with the HTX-245, Stephen's suggestion is the same one I'd suggest. When I dropped my HT, and it stopped working, I found that continuity from the battery + to the on-off switch was open. The schematic showed a fuse in there, but for the life of me I couldn't find it. Then I caught sight of what looked like a solder splash on a resistor, and under magnification I saw that some very fine wire had been wrapped around the resistor a few turns, and dropping the HT somehow caused the wire to melt, resulting in an open circuit. I rewound with some very fine relay wire, and the HT is still working today, more than 20 years later!

I hope your radio is as easy (and fun) to fix.

Dan makes some excellent points; I know that when I tuned my HF Hustler mobile antennas, standing near the antenna gave different results than when I was in the car, just as when parked on the driveway gave different results than when driving on the parkway.

You didn't say anything about the kind of antenna you want to measure, its operating frequency, or its location. As Dan pointed out, it might make little difference on HF, but could mean a lot on VHF or higher. For example, if you're 6'5" tall, your body's resonant frequency is right around 145 to 146 MHz, and standing up near the antenna will affect the readings differently than if you're kneeling or sitting. As you can see, any "three foot rule" has to have conditions set for it to work.

Can you plug in an external speaker or earphone? If that works, then chances are the speaker coil is open or there's crud around the earphone jack. If the earphone does not work, then it could be a problem with the audio amplifier circuit or volume control, or worse.

Good luck, Stew

For Bob, W7ETA, who said "One has to earn the privilege to transmit on any ham band." Not true! Novices are not permitted much of the VHF/UHF spectrum and Technicians aren't permitted most of HF.

For Mike, WA3SKN, who said, "Other countries have other regulatory agencys (sic) with their own set of rules... those rules cannot contradict international radio law." But sometimes international treaties are violated, as when Japan introduced their no-code license when Morse code was an international condition, or the U.S.'s creation of the 26-27 MHz CB band when international rules at the time stated that anyone operating below 30 MHz had to have a fundamental knowledge of International Morse Code.

Beacons are permitted by FCC rules, but ask yourself if yours would really benefit the ham community. In other words, if your neighbor has a 10-meter beacon, would it benefit other hams around the world if you put up one too? If you do put one up, it would be nice to have something that transmitted stepped power ratios; e.g. a 1-watt segment followed by a 0.1 watt segment then a 0.01 watt segment, and a web site that fully describes your location, antenna height and type, ground system, and a QSL address

Could the noise be from inside your home or in the nearby neighborhood? Some CFL lamps are noisy at RF, so are lamp dimmers, aquarium heaters, faulty doorbell or furnace transformers, even computers and monitors. Noise might also be coming from an arcing power line insulator, a nearby neon or plasma lamp, a neighbor's faulty doorbell or furnace transformer, an electric fence, arc welders, sodium-vapor street lamps, etc., etc., and some of it can be band specific and can be causing your noise problems.

Can you invite an Elmer over to your house to take a look at your set-up? An experienced eye might spot something the rest of us can't.

   You know, there are 26,400+ Elmer topics on these pages, and I'd bet a good number of them will answer your question. Search using "electrical ground," "antenna ground," "RF ground," "safety ground," "chassis ground," and "ground" in general. You'll see that not all antennas require RF grounds, but should have an electrical ground for lightning protection (unless they're portable or temporary antennas). Likewise, not all rigs require an electrical or safety ground; a lot depends on your set-up. But there's a lot of good information in those previous posts; don't let it go to waste. Good luck!

Try replacing the capacitor with a coaxial capacitor made from a short piece of coax and see what you get. RG-8 and RG-58 exhibits about 25 to 30 pF per foot (2 - 2½ pF per inch), and should hold up fairly well to moderately high voltages. Start with a one-foot length and use your meter to scan around the 20-meter band to see if you can get a unity dip on your SWR tester, (or a 5½ foot length for a 40-meter test). These values should be a little long, but you can prune the lengths a little to control the loop's resonant frequency. You can look up the capacitance per foot value in the coax manufacturer's datasheets.

If you have a general coverage receiver, you can run through its frequency range to a very good idea at what frequency the SWR tester is set to. You shouldn't have to wire the tester directly to the receiver; you should be able to pick up the signal by holding the tester within a foot or so of the receiver. Make sure the BFO is on (c.w. or SSB) so you can hear the tester's oscillator. You can get the feel for what you are listening for by slowly tuning the tester's dial while listening on a fixed frequency, but it will be very difficult to get a good, steady tone.

John, K1BXI, good one! It would be nice if the capacitor could conduct that kind of current, but unfortunately it doesn't conduct much at all. Besides, we're limited by law to the minimum power necessary to carry on communications.

Have you tried receiving with it yet? When you listen on a good receiver, do you hear a lot of "static" when you tune the capacitor, or is there an absence of noise? You will need to tune the tuning capacitor very slow, but you should hear a big peak in signal strength when the loop is in resonance with the incoming signal.

If you used the same capacitor with your coax loop, I would suspect it as it is the only common component. If your SWR meter "bounces" as you tune the capacitor, it could indicate that the capacitor vanes are shorting, or that wipers or bearings are dirty. Since you are using a receiving capacitor with small plate spacing, you might want to limit your operating to QRP levels to avoid flashover. I'd also look at "beefing up" how the capacitor is attached to the loop. By the way, height above ground shouldn't be all that important in getting the loop to work.

Could you SWR meter be misbehaving? If you disconnected the feed loop and replaced it with a 100 ohm resistor, would you get a steady 2:1 SWR across all bands? Is the battery fresh?

Have you looked at Steve Yates' web site (www.aa5tb.com/loop.html)? Lots of good information there.

I've been using a program called RJELOOP1.EXE by R.J.Edwards, G4FGQ. It allows one to select loop geometry, size, height above ground, and input power, and calculates inductance, capacitance required for resonance, coupling loop size, voltage across capacitor plates, etc. It, and a companion program for rectangular magnetic loops, is available for free download at http://www.wireless.org.uk/loop.htm.

To answer your question, I don't know how far toward the center you'd have to go to attach the second wire--I would guess about 1/8 wavelength should do it. This is one of those things that has to be modeled or tried to get a good answer.

One thing many don't consider is using 75-ohm coax on 80 meters; it can drop band-edge SWR from 6:1 to around 4:1, something your radio's built-in tuner might be able to handle.

About 4.5 µH.