What's the longest distance you've been able to pull in a station?

[radioactive]

. Case in point: In the '80s, I had a Zenith four-mode integrated stereo system with an FM section which pulled in every major Cleveland station in stereo just fine, using just the line cord antenna (I lived about 15 miles closer to Cleveland at the time). The AM reception, however, left an awful lot to be desired. During daylight hours I could get most of the major Cleveland AMs, but at night all but the big 50kW stations were all but inaudible. On top of that, the AM section in my stereo was, IMHO, so poorly designed that I was hearing shortwave at certain points on the AM dial after dark.


sounds like a all to common problem.most mfg of tuners that included am rarely paid attention to that band.there is a few like the philips ah673 that with a good signal can actually provide something worth listening to.my tu9900 is not too bad either for am but when push comes to shove i haul out my tube communication receivers that seem to pull the signals out of the mud when i want to do some serious dx'ing.

I live about five miles from a 1kW (0.5kW or 500 watts nights) AM station that will appear at two points on the dial on my system's tuner, 0.9 MHz or 900 kHz apart--560 and 1460 kHz, the latter being the station's fundamental (assigned) frequency. Doesn't bother me, especially (or at all), as I don't listen to AM that much anyhow.

what your experiencing is imaging and is a indactor or the receiver to reject them.

[majoco]

Nolan Woodbury said:

I think a lot of the answer is found in the various set-ups of verious radios. With the Superhet formula (antenna, r.f. amp, converter, i.f amp, detector, a.f amp then loudspeaker) signals are boosted to pretty sensitive levels. I'm not quite sure how it's done with solid state.

A superhet is a superhet - it doesn't matter whether it's hollow state or solid state! A single tube has possibly more gain than a single transistor, hence common mantle radios for local stations may have only needed 4 tubes in the radio circuit, where most SS radios had 6 transistors of which 3 were in the audio stages! Now that we have radios with hundreds of transistors in only three or four integrated circuits, it's possible to build digital display phase locked all-frequency super-sensitive radios for less cost than ever before.

Mind you, I would still like to see a shoot-out between a R390A against a WJ HF1000 on sheer performance, not the bells and whistles.

Best wishes for 2009 to everybody.

[Adam]

What older tube radios are considered exceptionally good for AM dx'ing? I've been listening to more AM lately, and been considering looking around for a few more radios.

For the past week or so I've been listening to a 1935 Truetone wooden table radio here at my desk, been using it for several hours a night and it's still going strong with all original tubes and caps.

I can hook my McKay Dymek DA-5 ferrite bar antenna to my GE Super one (or two) and haul in a station every 10 khz on the mw band just about any evening.
Keep thinking that I'll try it (the DA-5) on my 2000X (now that I think about it, don't think I've ever had it on am) but never got around to it. I have tried it on several boat anchors but it seems right at home on the GE's

[Sandy G]

I hooked up my KIWA MW Loop to a friend's 1930s tombstone, & it was like the radio came alive-it was Sunday afternoon, & we were picking up one-lunger daytimers out of Kentucky from our NE Tenn. location.

[zenith2134]

Furthest ever for me was on FM , with a 1972-3ish Marantz 2270 at a buddie's home. He had a large rooftop antenna he used for vhf tv and fm, no splitters until further down the line near the receiver. He also used a rotator. We were listening to some rock on ~ 89 MHZ and I was playing around with the rotator.

All of a sudden, I got Strong skip on that station-- and we were astonished to hear Saskatchewan, CANADA - an alternative station , appearantly low-power FM, too! From the extreme south of New york, that was an impressive distance without even trying. Very strong and clear reception also.

[kg4cna]

Being located in extreme southern Alabama, I can hear WSB-750 Atlanta very clear at night. I like listening to Krok Talk with Chris Krok starting at 9PM central time. I can also hear WSM-650 Nashville, WBBM-Chicago and sometimes WWL in New Orleans on my Zenith C835. This radio has opened up the AM band to me again...and I am enjoying it! Amazing how this radio picks up so much better than the junk being made today.

On the FM side, the station I work for (103.7) comes in okay...but at 103.5 there is a station I cannot normally pickup that comes blowin' in during the morning hours and right around 104.1 is another I don't normally hear. They carry Braves baseball and, I think, preaching. I can hear a preacher screaming and some heavy gospel on there at different times.

Just amazing what this radio can hear...all with the built-in antenna.

[Sandy G]

That reminds me-I REALLY need to get my "good" antenna back up- a limb fell out of a tree I had one end of it hooked to, & took out about 50' or so. I'm "makin' do" w/only 20' or so of outside antenna-Basically the lead in from the section that got K.O.-ed. May hold off, this IS the thunderstorm season, we've been pretty good in having about one every other night or so.

[Trance88]

The farthest I've ever been able to receive an AM radio signal is from Colorado on my 1956 Crosley AM Radio.

[ke4mcl]

about 20 years ago as a kid i picked up some antarctic scientific station on short wave while knob twiddling. i was using a blaupunkt barcelona chassis mounted inside a telefunken cabinet i found at my dads auto wrecking yard. antenna was a peice of wire about 6 feet long hanging out of the radio. im in miami fl so that was a good haul!

[redcoates7]

I heard my old hometown AM Station WGIR (Manchester NH) while sitting in my Dad'd pickup in Mcveytown PA It's only about 450 miles, but I thought it was just the coolest thing ever

[Sandy G]

I picked up a Warner-Robbins, Georgia FM station once, sitting outside of a burger place in Surgoinsville, Tennessee, on a 1980 Olds Cutlass factory AM/FM set. It was on a Saturday in the fall, it was cool, & I think they were getting ready for a football game...

[goraman]

Calgeri Canada from Roseville,Ca. just east of Sacramento on AM.
Suangean ATS 818 with a long wire ant.

[John James]

1968, 1969 etc., in my '66 Mustang, I used to get Fort Wayne, In. (don't know the call sign) down in Myrtle Beach, S.C. It was a good rock station then. We thought it was "cool" to hear something from so far away. To top it off, we were from Charlotte, so it was "outa site"!

(It may have been WOWO)

[AUdubon5425]

From 1997 to 1999 I lived in Fargo, No. Dak. & Moorhead, Minn. Inside of my apartment, 10 feet from a window with no external antenna, I would occasionally pick up WWL back home in New Orleans faintly before dawn, usually in & out for 30-45 minutes. This was on a mid-60's GE AM-FM portable.

I sent off for a QSL card in 1998 - two years later I received it, it had been forwarded twice (from Moorhead, Minn. to Fargo and then to New Orleans.) I'll have to find that card one day.

I did drive from Fargo to New Orleans one weekend listening to KMOX St. Louis the entire way down.