[Ron Ramirez]

I've been wanting to run a longwire antenna to my workbench for quite a while now.

I even acquired a large amount of coax, which I intended to use as a lead-in.

My intention was to run a long wire from the eave of my house on the north side of the house, well away from the power lines, to the roof of the garage, and then use a coax lead-in to run the length of the basement, over to my workbench.

I don't have to do that now.

Last year, I pulled the plug on land line phone service for good - I now use only a cellphone.

Guess what? The disconnected phone line still exists outside...and I happen to have a phone jack next to my workbench.

SO...

First of all, I measured the telephone terminals to make absolutely sure there was no voltage on any of them (there wasn't).

Then, I soldered one lead of a .01 uF capacitor to a long piece of wire. Connecting the other end of the wire to a radio I had on the bench, I then took the end with the capacitor, having removed the cover from the phone jack, and touched the free end of the capacitor to the various screw terminals (red, green, yellow, black).

While every terminal improved performance, the greatest increase came with the capacitor connected to either the yellow or green terminal.

I then screwed the free end of the cap to the green terminal.

The set on the bench, a Philco 71, was then receiving signals literally all over the AM band.

My next move will be to acquire a cord with a modular plug so that I can connect the cap to the green wire on this cord, and then plug the modular plug into the phone jack. That way, I can quickly disconnect it when not in use or in the case of an oncoming thunderstorm.

I do not recommend doing this if your phone line is still "live" and in use. But if you have thrown AT&T out of your house, as I have, this is something worthy of consideration.