Ron Hardin wrote:
Daytime reception is a problem of hearing weak signals. A MW loop
like the Terk loop is an impedance matcher, letting almost any radio
hear down to the propagating noise level, beyond which you cannot
go without a large antenna having forward gain, with any radio.

The SRIII does pretty well on its own in hearing down to the
propagating noise level, so adding a loop buys you only a little,
but it does do a little more nevertheless.

At _night_ it's a different problem. All MW signals propagate almost
unattenuated coast to coast, and you're hearing stations not against
the internal noise of the receiver any longer (that you can fix by
adding a MW loop) but against all the stations on the same frequency
coast to coast. Here a MW loop is no help at all, unless it's to
null away a local station perhaps (and you could do that by aiming
the radio alone). It's not that the loop is broken but that it
solves a different problem entirely.

At night _selectivity_ is the chief winner; the most bang for the buck
is perhaps the Sony 7600GR, because of the selectable sideband; it's
a fine MW radio in the daytime only with a MW loop added, unlike the
SRIII which is pretty good all the time, but not selective.


Really good post, and I might add a couple of things:

I own a GE Superadio, and for what I paid (less than $40 three years
ago) it's an amazing performer. Some things that might help you at night:

Be as high up at your listening locale as you can. If it's a two-story
house, try to listen on the second floor, etc. Buy or make a cheap Lazy
Susan type of thing to put the radio on, so that you can rotate it
slowly and smoothly through 180 degrees. Veteran DXers using a radio
with a built in loop or ferrite bar do that. That will help as much as
anythig can with seperating overlapping signals, but if you are getting
two different stations from the same (or directly opposite) directions,
even that won't help much.

The Superadio has a rear apron terminal for an AM antenna wire, of
course. Try about 20-30 feet of plain old bell wire (again, get it
elevated as high as is practical), and orient in according to the
compass direction you are trying to pull stations from. If the wire
runs north/south, it will be most sensitive to stations from the
east/west, for example.

Stick with it! When you get a real corker night for AM DX (they happen)
you may be amazed at what that radio can pull. DXing rewards the
hobbyist in direct proportion to the amount of time they spend on the hobby.

RF inteference is part of the game, most of the time. You may be able
to pull a few more fringe stations with the external antenna, but you'll
pull more noise, too.

And lastly, re-read Ron Hardin's post, above. A lot of very solid info
there.

Tony

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