{"id":64002,"date":"2025-09-23T05:00:32","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T09:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=64002"},"modified":"2025-09-23T05:39:49","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T09:39:49","slug":"improving-sw-reception-with-a-simple-ground-wire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/improving-sw-reception-with-a-simple-ground-wire\/","title":{"rendered":"Improving SW Reception with a Simple Ground Wire"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Many thanks to SWLing Post<\/em> contributor, Vladimir, who writes with a tip:<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’d like to share a very simple lifehack for improving reception on a regular radio broadcast receiver. I’ve been reading SWLing Post<\/em> for a long time and I remember that you already had something similar, but I’m not sure how much it’s the same.<\/p>\n

The method involves using a “virtual ground” – a quarter-wave resonant wire connected to the receiver’s “ground”, while the antenna itself remains a standard telescopic one. In amateur radio practice, this is widely known, but, as I see, it is very rarely used for SWLing, and meanwhile, it gives a good increase in performance without overloading the input circuits of the receiver. Of course, we are talking about reception at a known frequency and does not imply broadband.<\/p>\n

My video about it:<\/p>\n