OT improving radio reception

In article , Nick Hull says... eight. That way ice storms don't rip them down.

If aluminum is used, connections have to be bolted up rather than soldered for the lead-in, for obvious reasons. Aluminum is a lot stronger than soft-drawn copper.

Jim

Was this with a link around the loopstick inside the set, or was it just a few turns around the outside?

Jim

I had the same question, and posted to a lot of these radio ngs as to why. Forgot the details, but there are very specific diffs between the tuning circuitry in car radios and that of your home stereo. Why home stereos/radios don't incorporate these is beyond me.

I haven't gotten around to it yet, but I think I'm gonna have a lot of 12V car batteries lyin around the house soon....

---------------------------- Mr. P.V.'d formerly Droll Troll

Just one, deep cycle, with a well-filtered float charger from an alarm system.

And a typical car vertical stick antenna needs a big ground plane to work against. Sheet metal center piece for mounting the antenna, with hardware cloth soldered to it for the 'big' part.

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A couple turns around the loopstick as I recall.

Gunner

Rule #35 "That which does not kill you, has made a huge tactical error"

The CC Crane is a ferrite antenna and RF amplifier. It requires a

Being ferrite, it is probably an H-field antenna which would exhibit some directionality. That's good: helps prefer a given signal over external atmospheric and galactic noise.

Once an antenna captures enough signal + external noise to provide signal significantly greater than the receiver's (or amplifier's) internal noise, more antenna doesn't help until it is large enough to have significant directional gain. At broadcast band, that's hundreds of feet.

Making a low-noise broadcast band RF amp is simple, but probably more than $100 worth of screwing around unless one enjoys building elex.

Good point, Jim. Some tube-type AM radios had loops comprised of several turns of Litz wire spiral-wound on a fiberboard form the size of the back of the radio. Sometimes it *was* the back of the radio. They worked quite well if the radio was "pointed" at the radio station.

That's how old loop antennas (the kind built on large crosses or turnstyles) worked. IIRC they're sensitive off the edge of the loop (it's been a while since I've had mine out and running).

They make great antennas for crystal radios where there's a strong local station (WLNA in my case) so the strong local signal can be nulled out. Basically just a germanium diode and a set of phones makes a pretty good radio with that.

Jim

Hello all .... The first thing I would tell the fellow is to definitely stay away from Radio Shack. Also, I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings but do the same for the CC Radio. I find the CC radio overpriced and susceptible to noise sources that some of my other radios ignore. The CC has some annoying features such as that damm beep on band change and that click on the preselect buttons for tuning. Definitely the way to go would be with a good antenna. I would do a search under broadcast band DXing. There are a myriad of sites and ideas.

The radio I recommend would be an OLD car radio. I have been very disappointed in the AM performance of car radios of late. I understand that this is purposeful as the radio is less susceptible to interference from the on board computers in the car. So instead of better shielding-design; they degenerate the AM sensitivity. A decent 12 V power supply can be cheaply built or bought. I would stay away from the small switching supplies as some generate a lot of hash. You know what your needs are in the valley so try some different combinations but trying to "buy" your way into good reception would probably be counterproductive and disappointing.

God Bless and good luck pulling them in ......Tom Popovic Belle Vernon Pa.

A couple of turns around the radio would also work if the turns are aligned so that they also couple to the loopstick. The size of the turns are not critical so make a few turns and try it in different locations around the radio. The neatest arrangement is to put the turns around the loopstick.

Bill K7NOM

IIRC there used to be a special antenna wire - 12-14 gage steel with a heavy copper coating. I seem to recall that it was close to square in cross section. It is close to 60 years since the tree supporting the outboard end this antenna fell, so I won't guarantee the veracity of this memory. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

Just don't keep them anywhere near any valued tools. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

You might have been pulling the local oscillator.

Some sets wind the LO coil around the loopstick as well.

Other than that, I'd have a tough time figuring out what happened unless I could inspect the receiver.

Jim

Yep, that's called "copperweld." Steel core, copper over the outside.

The next best thing is hard-drawn copper telegraph wire, from the abandoned lines by the train tracks.

Er, or so they say....

Jim

This is not an uncommon problem with VWs. The difficulty sometimes lies in the antenna (the roof-top mounted kind). More (much more) information can be obtained at:

Telephone wires are copper clad steel and used wires are easily gotten from the repair trucks, it has no salvage value. At one time I considered running aeriel phone cables with the far end shorted so I could put a 12 volt car battery on the 2 wires to melt snow/ice.

I've heard that too. I've also heard that those green glass insulators were fun to plink with a .22, plinking from fewer than 5 poles distant didn't count.

Roger on Don's Roger.

Bob Swinney

Don sez:

Errr, lessee. "Standard" pole spacing used on some RR's was 30 poles per mile. 5/30 mile = 880 feet. That's a some fancy plinking alright!

Bob Swinney