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  #16  
Old 04-05-2017, 11:57 AM
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I've had some luck hooking up one end of a 40's 'loop' antenna to TRF sets.
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  #17  
Old 04-05-2017, 01:00 PM
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First thing I tried....no good.
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  #18  
Old 04-05-2017, 06:37 PM
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If you have an attic and a none metallic roof you could run a wire up there. But unfortunately there's no magical way to pick up a strong clear AM signal with a puny little indoor antenna. The real key is in getting the antenna away from unwanted noise sources.
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  #19  
Old 04-06-2017, 01:50 PM
fixmeplease fixmeplease is offline
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Next time you go on a trip put your car radio on AM and hear how nice it picks up in the country but once you get near groups of homes it goes downhill fast. Thats about the easiest way I can describe AM signals and the frustration for some receiving them.

Some used to hook to bed springs but hardly anyone has those anymore. Perhaps a furnace duct may work? What little indoor antenna work Ive done it seemed like the longer the wire the better. I did build a montrosity of an antenna about 4 feet high with wires thru holes of wood pieces (I forget the term) around and around the wood pieces and that worked pretty good. it wasnt a bad directional TV antenna either.
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  #20  
Old 04-28-2017, 02:03 PM
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Late to the party here but ran across this thread searching for TV antenna advice. Just wanted to add that a straight wire in the attic makes a pretty good AM antenna. It's most sensitive in the direction perpendicular to the wire. You do need a good ground too.

I think what fixmeplease is talking about is a 'loop' antenna. I have an old article somewhere for "The AM Super Loop" which was a diamond shaped wood frame this guy hung from the ceiling of his radio room (or attic) on a rotatable mounting so he could point it in any direction.

I'm sure some of the antenna websites have DIY designs and something should fit your situation. Noise is rampant on the AM band these days though. Watch out for fluorescents, dimmers, computers, TV cable equipment, etc. etc. If you get a lot of noise try turning things off that you aren't using.
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  #21  
Old 04-30-2017, 06:29 PM
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Look Ma, no wires!!

My progress so far:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnB-...ature=youtu.be
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  #22  
Old 05-03-2017, 02:59 PM
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That AK 20 is a fine example to use. I wonder how many years that Capehart had the patent on that loop. It was not until 1939 that most all radios began using loop antennas.
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  #23  
Old 05-03-2017, 08:50 PM
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About 10-12 yrs back, I lucked upon a Grebe Synchrophase that was either brand-new, or had never suffered the indignity of being actually "Hooked up". It even smelled new. Would LOVE to check 'er out& see how she performs !
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  #24  
Old 05-04-2017, 10:07 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sandy G View Post
About 10-12 yrs back, I lucked upon a Grebe Synchrophase that was either brand-new, or had never suffered the indignity of being actually "Hooked up". It even smelled new. Would LOVE to check 'er out& see how she performs !
I saw one of those Grebes in a floor cabinet that was like a drop-leaf table with a speaker on the apron. even the grill spelled out Grebe. A well-stocked collector near here has one in his "radio museum" That set also has a place to hide the batteries, right?
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  #25  
Old 05-04-2017, 08:51 PM
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Naw, mine's not like that. We're pretty close to Gatlinburg/ Pigeon Forge/ Great smoky mtns national park, lotsa "Aunty-Que"junk shoppes to liberate you from yr money. A couple yrs back, this one had a black metal console radio that looked new.
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  #26  
Old 05-04-2017, 11:31 PM
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I have the Terk loop antenna I use on my Radiola 60 and it works great...I forget the term for this outboard antenna. It is just a loop with a variable cap to match the freq. A bit tricky as you have to tune the station and then tune the Terk to that frequency but it works.
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Last edited by Dave A; 05-04-2017 at 11:32 PM. Reason: typo
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  #27  
Old 05-05-2017, 01:53 AM
Titan1a Titan1a is offline
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CCrain used to sell a ferrite-bar twin-coil antenna. Again, this requires adjusting by frequency. Mine's on loan. If you can find a used one for a good price, buy it! You can't go wrong.
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  #28  
Old 05-05-2017, 03:28 PM
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Ratshak made a very nice loop "Tenny" a few yrs back that was plenty good enuf to use as the tenny for my big Yammy receiver. It wasn't as good as my late, lamented Kiwa, but RS was roughly $25, & the Kiwa was about $400, IIRC. As well as I recall, the RatShak didn't embarrass itself, even if I hooked it up to one of my big hollow state Boat Anchors..
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  #29  
Old 05-09-2017, 01:07 PM
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My antique radio collection dates back to the 1950s-1960s, by which time most small table radios were using loop antennas, often with an external antenna terminal for use in fringe reception areas. Almost every one of my radios, except the AM tuner in my bookshelf stereo system, has such a loop on the back cover; these antennas work quite well even in my area, 35 miles or so from Cleveland AM stations. They even bring in DX reception at night (after sunset, of course) from the East Coast (500 miles or so from me) and two Great Lakes states (Ohio and Michigan). The furthest I have received so far in this area after dark using a loop antenna has been Dallas, Texas (WBAP-AM), although there was one exceptional case in the 1980s when I picked up KOA-AM radio in Denver after the local AM on that frequency had signed off for technical maintenance. That was the only time I had ever heard in my area any station, AM or FM, from the Rocky Mountains, using an AM radio (the AM tuner in a Zenith stereo system I had at the time) with a built-in antenna.

Getting back to the topic of this thread, I have never heard 1920s-era AM radios (battery-operated or otherwise) in operation, although I did read a post to ARF recently in which someone discussed a 1920s vintage Crosley radio that didn't sound all that great, even after it had been electronically restored. The radio had a good-sized speaker, but the sound was (according to the poster)...how should I say it, passable for sets of that era but definitely not hi-fi. I honestly do not believe this was or could have been entirely the fault of the design of the radio (the sets were built as well as the state of the art allowed at the time), as I am sure most, if not all, '20s-era AM radio stations were not built for high fidelity (narrow frequency response, for one thing). This is likely why many, again if not most (there were likely exceptions, such as Zenith) radios of the '20s sounded tinny and low-fo compared to sets built in the following decade and beyond. Radio itself was in its infancy in the '20s, so it was unrealistic, IMHO, to expect hi-fi sound from any radio, since most used horn speakers, built in that era--the stations themselves were not that great from a sound standpoint.

BTW, I am 60 years old (almost 61), so wasn't around to see, let alone hear (except by means of old broadcasts on tape, such as NBC's "First Fabulous Fifty" retrospective which was broadcast in 1976 over the NBC radio network), any radios or radio broadcasts from the 1920s. My comments above are based on what I have read (and am still reading) about the history of U. S. AM radio (I am very interested in it, especially the history of the former NBC radio network), and on what I remember of my relatives telling me about radio of that era. I still have a CD I made of the entire NBC "First Fabulous Fifty" retrospective, which is still available on the Internet (I don't recall the URL at the moment).
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Last edited by Jeffhs; 05-09-2017 at 01:44 PM.
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  #30  
Old 05-09-2017, 02:00 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin Kuehn View Post
If you have an attic and a none metallic roof you could run a wire up there. But unfortunately there's no magical way to pick up a strong clear AM signal with a puny little indoor antenna. The real key is in getting the antenna away from unwanted noise sources.
If you live in an apartment building, the small loop AM antennas may pick up your area's local stations but I wouldn't hold out much hope for DX. The reason is the noise level in most such buildings. I live on the first floor of a 2-story building and do get quite a bit of noise from various sources--microwave ovens, switch-mode power supplies such as are used in home computers, and the like, so any AM "DX" I get is ordinarily garden-variety stuff from 50kW stations in nearby states (within about 500 miles)--Pennsylvania, New York City and Chicago. I get my best AM DX, amazingly, during power outages, when the noisemakers (microwaves, SMPS power supplies, etc.) are temporarily silenced, but when the juice comes back on, so does the noise.
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