On Sun, 08 Jan 2006 19:43:00 +0000, Mark Carver
wrote:

Indeed, though as a lad I used to build crystal sets and other radios,
connecting to the 'mains' earth using a single wire into a 13A plug would make
the reception come alive !

Did that ever work? Whenever I tried it, I just got deafening mains
hum. So I used the radiator pipework instead.