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| One of Us |
So I live very rural. The nearest city with AM radio signal is about an hour away. They shut off their long range signal at sundown year round. That means there is no reception at different times depending on the time of the year. I pretty much hate that once they flip the local switch I get music from Mexico instead of what is local. I would like to improve my AM reception as the best news and talk radio is on the AM stations out here. What options are there to improve this without a huge cost? ~Ann   | ||
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Ann, I am no expert but the guy who used to work with me was a HAM operator + the mounted 2 posts on the top of my 40' deep shop + strung a horizontal wire between them + he picked up a lot of far off stations. The only guy who ever noticed the wire assembly was another operator. I don't know if this will work for A.M. but if one can get reception due to their teeth fillings then it might be worth a try. I would like to hear results. Never mistake motion for action. | |||
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Interesting. Never mistake motion for action. | |||
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Well, gosh. This looks like an easy job. Thanks, Smokin Joe!  ~Ann | |||
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| Moderator |
If you want a radio with good reception and good sound, the best bang for your buck is pretty much any automotive radio with an external antenna. Take one out of a junk car (if you go to a big junk yard look around for one that has a USB input as well and then you can download books and other music on to a flash drive), cut the antenna wire to give you a few feet, then hook it up to either a power supply or use a 12V battery with a maintainer. If your computer is on a UPS just connect it to the battery in that.Splice a section of cable TV coax cable long enough to get to where you want to go (tree, roof, etc) +20 extra feet. Strip the coax the last 20 feet to bare conductor and there you go. About the only other thing to do is seal the end of the coax where you stripped it to the center conductor, and you can decide how you want to do that. for every hour in front of the computer you should have 3 hours outside | |||
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Interesting idea. My dodge van radio does not get Am reception. I have no idea why! Additionally, when the local stations switch off their long range broadcast it is also just a poor on my vehicle which does have a functional AM band. ~Ann | |||
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| Administrator |
I used to build them myself - I am talking early 70’s last century!! We did not have enough money to buy the expensive German made ones to listen to Arabic broadcasts. So we got designs from wireless magazines, and built our own. Now I have a very expensive communications receiver which covers every conceivable frequency! | |||
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That sounds like a job well done, Saeed. ~Ann | |||
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A long wire antenna and a good ground will do wonders. You can make it as simple or complex as you want. A 'net search will probably give you lots of info. When I was a kid I ran a wire from the chimney on the house to the pole on the garage. Late at night I could pick up AM stations from all over the US. Last winter I rebuilt my dads old sw/am radio. When I was finished I was very disappointed in that all I could get receive were a couple of far out preachers, 1 talk show, and a station in Spanish. I need to figure out how to put a time switch on the radio that will let me pick a year so that I can listen to real DJ's, rock and roll and the Wolfman. C.G.B. | |||
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Back in the '80's I built a long wire antenna in my attic. I ran it through the wall behind my radio up into the attic. There I wound it around a section of roof supports from one end of the attic to the other, about 100 feet. My radio had an antenna and a ground attachment. I connected the antenna to the radio and ran the ground out of the house and attached it to a copper electrical ground rod. Reception was truly amazing I lived on the east coast in SC and could pick up stations in California. | |||
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If you have internet connection, 1/2 Mbit/s is more than enough, you can listen to almost anything. I don't know your location, but all radio stations here broadcast also over internet. I know this is not answer to your question. BTW FM and directional antenna doesn't work? | |||
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Jiri, The problem is for internet I need a satellite dish. Bandwidth is not unlimited and it takes about three sessions of listening to radio broadcasts to limit me out for the month. I am not sure what the reason is but AM radio broadcasters here shut off their long range signal around 1700 hrs. If you live in the city you will still hear the broadcast but not where I live. The same for television, satellite needed for most channels so there is no antenna here. It would be useless unless I put up an expensive tower. Not gonna do that... ~Ann | |||
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Thanks! Looks like that have some really nice radios. ~Ann | |||
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