[TriLUG] OT - AM reception

[Steve Litt]

On Monday 21 February 2005 10:20 am, Rick DeNatale wrote:
>
> The problem is I haven't worked out how to get any kind of decent AM
> reception on our AM receiver. I mostly get a buzz instead of The Buzz.
>   I think that the buzz we are getting is coming from other units in
> our "A/V stack, like the DirectTV receiver etc.
>
> When we built our house a few years ago, I ran two RG6 cables and a
> 300 ohm twinlead from the cabinet where the AV equipment is housed up
> to the attic. The RG6 cables are used for OTA TV and OTA FM, and the
> twinlead was intended for AM.  The FM feed works well, even though we
> are less than a mile from the WCPE transmitter. The OTA TV works
> sporadically for digital TV, and the AM reception is useless.
>
> Any suggestions on how to get better AM reception for the rare times we
> want it?

I used to DX AM as a kid. What worked well for me was a hundred or so feet of 
bell wire, thrown out the window and into a tree, and connected to the AM 
Antenna terminal of my radio through a lightning arrester. I then connected 
the AM Ground terminal of my radio to a grounding rod sunk 8 feet, and 
clamped to the wire with a grounding rod clamp.

This was a long time ago when electrical noise was at a much lower level. From 
Chicago I routinely got stations all up and down the east coast, Texas and 
the gulf coast, and several stations from California including KFI Los 
Angeles.

I was lucky to have AM Antenna and AM ground terminals on the radio. Most 
radios don't have that, but I'm sure there's some place in the radio's 
circuitry to attach such wires.

HTH

SteveT


Steve Litt
Founder and acting president: GoLUG
http://www.golug.org