Scott Supershield Antenna

[J.N. Shetler]

Does anyone have an original Scott SuperShield Antenna Kit in their possession? It was a double doublet type for use in the later 1930s sets. A twisted pair lead-in mated to a transformer/filter at the center of an "X" wire antenna. EH Scott published a schematic of the transformer in Scott News which shows several chokes and capacitors, but no values are listed. This did away with the antenna matching unit found on many early AW23 units (bolted to the 2nd IF tube shield).  Midway through the AW23 production, Scott added his special doublet connections on the chassis (two antenna posts + ground), but looking at the print, this supershield coupling is only active on the two upper bands. As an aside, if you have the two antenna posts, the right one should be jumpered to the ground post if a simple long wire is used. This is not really mentioned in the literature for the later "23", but no jumper will limit your reception on the two upper bands. The two lower bands still used a conventional coupling. I think with the later Philharmonic, all bands were coupled with the "supershield". It would be interesting to hear from someone who had a proper factory engineered antenna hooked to their AW23 or Philharmonic. While they work well with a simple long wire, I'm guessing a well engineered antenna would make a dramatic improvement. I have been curious about the performance advantages that building one of these may have. Decades ago when I got into radio, the first advice I was given was to focus on the antenna. Even a 5 tube set with a good antenna can impress, and a high tube count radio with tremendous gain hooked to poor antenna will only give you better reception of noise. I have a long wire strung high which works well, but sometimes the signal/noise ratio is unbearable. While the AW23 in top shape really can pull in signal under a microvolt, the noise becomes an issue at times.

Justin