I recently read comments in another forum that stated magnetic baluns are useless. (Compared to WHAT, I would ask.) Of course, there are all kinds of variables when comparing different antenna set-ups, but I live in a metro environment where man-made noise is prevalent, and using a magnetic balun on my random wire antenna has made ALL the difference in greatly reducing noise. If your antenna of choice is a random wire, I highly recommend feeding it with a magnetic balun and 50 ohm coax. In my experience, it's a simple installation that produces excellent results. I'd be interested in hearing from other SWL's about their experiences using magnetic baluns, pro or con.
-With regard to signal-to-noise radio, I have noticed that using an external tuner certainly improved Signals, but also increased the Noise with it, resulting in no improvement of S/N ratio. It was a very interesting experiment. Thanks for the reply.