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From: wmartin@brl-smoke.ARPA (Will Martin )
Newsgroups: net.analog,net.audio
Subject: Walkman-type radio antennas
Message-ID: <384@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 29-Apr-86 10:39:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.384
Posted: Tue Apr 29 10:39:40 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 2-May-86 23:15:29 EDT
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Organization: USAMC ALMSA, St. Louis, MO
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Xref: watmath net.analog:795 net.audio:8334

Something I have long wondered about the small walkman-type radios that
use the headphone cord as the antenna -- all of the small headphones I've
seen use paired thin coax for the wiring to those 'phones. I would think
that the use of coax as the antenna would be a mistake; that unshielded
parallel wire would be better as an antenna, and that the 'phones, being
driven with an output-level signal anyway, would not need shielded cable
for their input. 

Do these use shielded coax-type wire for some reason I have not thought
of? If not, do they use coax simply because thin, flexible, paired coax
wire is available and cheaper than suitable four-wire parallel flat cable
would be?

I have thought about experimenting and replacing the coax on a set of
'phones with four-wire flat cable, but looking at a few catalogs
indicates that I may have to strip four wires off the side of some
wider ribbon cable to get such wire; any four-conductor unshielded
I ran across had twisted wires, which probably would be little better
than coax for antenna use. Before I try this, I was wondering if anyone
else had done this, or had 'phones with unshielded wire and compared
their effectiveness as antennas with the ordinary coax-wired varieties?

Regards, 
Will Martin

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