starman wrote:

Laura M wrote:

Hi all - I'm thinking of purchasing the Sony ICF-SW7600 as my first
shortwave radio. I've been reading some comments in the newsgroup
that lead me to believe this might be a good radio to start with, to
see if I enjoy SW.

I'm curious about the whip antenna. Will this be sufficient to
receive quality AM station reception at night? If not, is there an
antenna I can purchase that is small and is easily set up and put
away? The SW radio will be in our guest room and I need something
easily removed when company comes over.

Any info would be so helpful and appreciated!

Laura



Hi Laura:


As another poster pointed out, the whip antenna likely has nothing to
do with the AM (540 - 1700) reception. That is the function of the
internal ferrite bar antenna.

I have no personal experience with that radio. But I can tell you
that Sony builds a better AM receiver/antenna section into their radios
than a lot of other manufacturers.

Late in the evening - especially in the wintertime - you may be
astonished by the stations you can recieve (not that a better MW
receiver and antenna couldn't do better, of course). How to improve
your odds? If you are in a wood frame home - good! If you can listen
from the second, or even better third floor (if your home is built as
such) better yet! If you live out in the country - still better!
Few people have all these things going for them, but you get the idea.
Another thing you might want to consider is a device called
"Select-A-Tenna" (look it up with Google - lots of places sell it). It
is about $50.00. It is totally passive: No wires, no AC plug-in, no
batteries. You set it near your radio (at a right angle to the top of
your radio, using a ferrite bar) and "tune" it to the appoximate
frequency you are listening to. It is a minor - but notable - help at
night, but it is a godsend in the daytime. Daytime use of the
Select-A-Tenna can give amazing results.

Another very cheap (couple of bucks) investment is a plastic Lazy
Susan big enough to put your radio on. This allows you to rotate your
radio smoothly over fractions of an arc - to find the best sweet spot
for the station you are trying to pull in. With a ferrite bar, you will
not have to rotate the radio more than 90 degrees either way. With a
ferrite bar antenna, rotating the radio 180 degrees brings you abck to
where you started - get the picture?


I also strongly recommend a FREE program called "Radio Listeners Data
Base"
which is available at this URL. It's the first item listed:

http://www.fineware-swl.com/


This is primarily for SW, but also has the WHAM logs, a fairly
complete database for MW (AM) listening, too. A great help - just
remember it isn't always right, either.

Hope this was some help.

Best,

Tony


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