Quote:
Originally Posted by DavGoodlin
I have a Zenith J615 (one year newer than the H511) with the extra 12BA6 RF amp stage. This makes a difference, especially in the daytime reception. One thing I did was "peak" all the IF can trimmers. I am confined at work to a brick-metal building, a literal "faraday cage , so I had a challenge to optimize daytime reception. This is the best performer in this building to date.
Jeff, if you need the Sams for the alignment procedure, PM me. It may be the last thing (after those caps) you need to do.
The other radio I used to make this daytime reception comparison is a Motorola H56, a typical AA5. I restored it at work "in the cage" over several lunchtimes, and I could barely get more than a few non-local stations after doing the standard alignment.
Now its on loan to a family member as a daily driver for the kitchen.
Attachment 175739
The Motorola does not have the RF amp stage either, so I imagine your Zenith would be slightly better. 
Reece is spot on advise........ get close to a window or at least an outside wall. AM hates tunnels.  |
I don't have many windows in my apartment, and none in the bedroom; the nearest outside wall is in the apartment itself, near the front windows. This apartment building, constructed some time in the 1900s (1911 or 1930; my landlord isn't sure), was originally storefronts which were later converted to apartments (there are 12 units in the building). In fact, my apartment was at one time the landlord's workshop.
A curious thing about radio and TV reception here is that FM reception is great on all but a few stations, but television reception with an antenna (particularly digital) is not as good, which is why almost everyone in the building, myself included, has cable. I do not receive two Cleveland TV stations on VHF DTV channels 8 and 10 (virtual channels 8 and 19) on an indoor antenna -- and don't you know it, the subchannels of those stations (Antenna TV and MeTV, respectively, retro TV channels showing old programs from the 1950s to about the mid-'80s) are the two channels I watch the most. The others (5, 8, 19, 25, 43, 55, 61) come in on an antenna as nice as you please on my flat screen, and I think they look even better now than they ever did in analog.
The Zenith H511 series doesn't have an RF stage. It is just a basic AA5; the only refinements, as I mentioned in my post, are tone-compensation circuits. This series was known as the "Consol-Tone" series because of their rich, full sound from a 5" speaker. Since most AM stations these days do not play music, I guess the high-fidelity feature of these radios is lost -- unless you live in an area that has one or more music stations. One AM music station with a decent signal is CFZM in Toronto on 740 kHz. If you live in the northeastern US or the Great Lakes region, you can probably hear "AM 740" quite well. I live within one mile of the south shore of Lake Erie and can hear the station just about all the time. CFZM also has an Internet audio stream at
www.am740.ca if you cannot hear the station OTA.