Messing with distance on my radios

[Randy Bassham]

Sometime in the middle 70's my Mother was hospitalized and she wanted an FM radio so she could listen to what she wanted in her room. I was working for the Magnavox dealer and Dad came in to get her a radio. He selected a Magnavox model 270 which is just a pretty nondescript moderate sized plastic AM-FM set that used "C" cells so she would be able to get better battery life than one that used "AA's". The hospital would not let patients have anything that had to be plugged in.

I was playing around with the little set and it was receiving FM stations from over 65 miles away clearly inside a metal building located in a valley, I tried several other sets we had in the display and none of them would touch it for sensitivity. Since that radio was a display I went and got a new one in the box and opened it up, put batteries in it and tried it, like the others it wouldn't come anywhere near the display set for sensitivity. Mother passed away in 1984 and I now have the radio, it's still hotter than a $2.00 pistol.