Radios in office buildings, and general radio interference

[Chad Hauris]

Originally Posted by RetroHacker

Yeah, I figured as much - the All American 5 design was well known for it's ubiquity and low cost - not it's performance.

I was just amazed at how drastically the performance went away when I brought it into the office. It worked very well at home, and picked up weak stations, and sounded clear, even in my workshop, across from the computer. But at the office - static and hum.

I'm going to keep an eye out for a small FM-only set.

-Ian

I did a test with a Westinghouse 5-tube small AM radio with ferrite bar antenna and a GE Superadio 1 in the same location. These were in the second story window of a downtown brick and concrete building.
The Westinghouse had all electrolytics replaced...other caps were ceramic.

The GE got a good quality AM signal where the Westinghouse picked up a lot more noise. There were no computers or TV's turned on in the area...the only interference was from fluorescent lights.
I think some of this noise must be coming in on the power lines and maybe directly into the tube filaments? It's kind of a puzzle why one radio can be really noisy and one can be clean in the same location. Both were using just the internal antennas.