Another product that doesn't believe in center positive or signal and
outside negative or ground. When I made my temporary antenna for the
Frequency Checker, I assumed that the plug was wired according to the over
50 year old standard and connected it to the center. No matter, it still
increased the range from 200 feet to over 1000 feet.
Chuck Anderson
At 07:31 PM 6/17/2005, you wrote:
"Bill Swingle" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>It looks like the Hobbico antenna utilizes a stereo plug (2 conductors +
>grd) While Mike's uses a mono plug (1 conductor + grd).
Inside the frequency checker there are two boards. One is a large LED dot
matrix display that includes the antenna jack on one side. The other is the
smaller rf board, which leaves enough room for the batteries to fit inside
the case. Here's a picture: http://www.vvsss.com/freq_checker/both_boards.jpg
The rf board has a single seven-inch antenna wire coming out of it that wraps
around the inside of the case and ends at the antenna jack on the dot matrix
board. With no external antenna plugged in, this seven-inch wire alone acts
as the antenna.
Now look at this picture: http://www.vvsss.com/freq_checker/matrix_back.jpg
This is the back of the dot matrix board, which has a PIC microcontroller
just above the antenna jack. You can also see the battery connectors.
Notice that the end of the antenna wire connects only to the ground or shield
terminal of the antenna connector, which appears to be a stereo jack. I was
unable to find any connection of the tip and center terminals of the jack to
any on the circuitry on the dot matrix board, nor did I expect to find any.
Those terminals are merely soldered to an isolated portion of the board to
help secure the jack in place.
The bottom line is that it doesn't make a bit of difference whether you use a
mono or stereo plug for your antenna because only the shield (ground)
terminal connects to anything inside the frequency checker. Whatever you plug
into the ground connection of that jack will act as an extension of the
existing seven-inch antenna wire.
Here's a cute animated GIF I made to show how fast the frequency checker
scans: http://www.vvsss.com/freq_checker/freq_checker.gif
Mike
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