[glyphmon]

As a fairly long aside, my workplace where I am the IT Manager, is a non-profit partner of Acadia National Park, responsible for operating the Research and Learning Center there.  The campus where we're located is a redeveloped former Navy base where they did a lot of radio work, especially during the Cold War.  Pretty sure it's where the Navy CTs would come to train.  It had a satellite location nearby with an AN/FRD10 antenna the locals used to call the elephant cage.  The original radio station was on Mount Desert Island, but John D. Rockefeller, Jr. was developing his network of park roads and it ran through the location where the base was, so he orchestrated the acquisition of the land and even some of the construction for the new base.  The caveat was that if the base ever closed, the land would revert to the National Park Service.  Now, the non-profit does a lot of research and education work, bringing in many recent college graduates or some still studying to work with scientists.  One of them is focused on science communication and shares a bit of a fascination for radio and was interested when I told him about this new hobby I was developing, and I said I would bring in the 6K3 when I got it "finished".

That being said, I'm not yanking my antenna off of the side of the building now that it's in place. I know I frequently see ten feet as a common length for a random wire antenna. Also, I'm probably not going to be able to have a great ground connection, but you never know; the building I'm probably going to take it to for a demonstration probably has some big honking metal pipes I could tie a ground wire to. (The building was the old medical center on base.)

So what's the consensus? For a quick and easy demonstration, would ten-foot length of wire in a straight line be sufficient for a temporary basis? I get that it may not have the sensitivity of 100-feet. Would going longer make an appreciable difference? Obviously with AM, directionality matters and I suppose a 10-foot wire would be easier to experiment with and direct than a super long one. May have the advantage of less noise from transmission lines there as well.

Best wishes,
Roy