And now, over to Smug Corner...

This is a chance to score points off your elders and betters who inhabit a land where so much money has gone over the counter, they have "Receivers," not "a radio" and have a bad case of the Rhombics for an antenna where we have got "a bit of wire". If we have a portable radio we won't even have that...

Users of portable radios and scanners, those with a reasonable RF performance, get an early chance to visit Smug Corner. Even the small telescopic or helical antenna will deliver a signal, albeit at a changeable, usually high impedance and at a low level, the input stages designed to cope with all this. No antenna wires leave you free to listen anywhere, locations near windows giving best reception without the screening effects from any metalwork used in the building.

Portable users are strongly recommended to use a mains power supply when listening at home. This saves a fortune on dry cells and provides an earth path for unwanted signals. One of my sweeping generalisations is to state that DC battery power is up to 200 times more expensive than using the AC adapter.

Using ni-cad rechargeables is a debatable saving as the convenience of not buying dry cells is negated by the lower voltage available and environmental issues about their disposal. A radio expecting to see 6 volts from four AA cells will only get 5 volts from a set of ni-cads, a loss of 16%. Not much in real terms, but enough to affect the RF performance of one of the better portables. If you have upgraded, the losses may degrade the new set to the level of the one just replaced. Remember; performance is such these days that each new model only brings an incremental increase in spec. But battery technology is improving all the time. Nickel technology is getting cheaper...

If the portable has an antenna connector, short pieces of wire can be tried, but don't go to any great lengths - pun intended - to put up big aerials for portables. Too much signal can cause more problems than too little...

For those of us who require an outdoor aerial - by far the best for general reception as we get away from electrical interference inside the house - we always recommend The Long Wire.