On Jun 29, 4:09 pm, pixel_a_ted
Any suggestions for improving AM reception would be greatly
appreciated.
___________

I have employed a certain technique with success. It takes a longwire
antenna, preferably strung high and clear. Bring the free end of the wire
into the house and wrap it around the radio about a dozen times and then
ground the end. You have wound a crude RF transformer. If you have hum or
buzzing, you may be able to cure it by repositioning the longwire.

You might not know how the rod antenna is mounted inside the case;
experiment to get the optimum improvement. In a radio with a big case, you
can locate the antenna rod with any remote control. Simply hold the remote
control at different places around the radio and press a button. Where the
remote makes the most noise, that's where the rod is. You can test a remote
for dead/alive this way, too.

I have also opened up a radio, wound a small coil (again, just a few turns)
around the antenna rod and brought the two ends out of the radio, grounding
one and connecting the other to the longwire antenna in para 1.

Properly employed, this absolutely works.

When I was in the Navy on a ship in Pearl Harbor, my longwire antenna was
the telephone wiring for the ship. I got a few clicks and pops from dialing
pulses, but I also got to listen to AM radio in my bunk. A small cap
isolated the phone's DC. On another ship, I had a single piece of hookup
wire that ran out on deck through a convenient door near my berthing
compartment and I wrapped it around some piping on deck. I was questioned
about it a few times, but I got to keep it. (It's good to be the Chief.)

Best ever was my office desk on the aircraft carrier Oriskany. I snaked a
coax cable up near the top of the island structure to the antenna patch
panel of the meteorologists. I shared their 35' whip through an SRA-12
band-splitting filter. (They never used the BCB outputs, anyway.) I
bummed my very own patch cord from the radiomen, coded it with yellow tape
and asked the meteorologists if they minded that I added a patch cord to
their patch panel. They didn't. (It's good to be the Chief.)

With the weather-guessers' whip, I got KNX-1070, Los Angeles between Hawaii
and Guam, about 3700 miles. (Wish I'd sent them a reception report but I
didn't; I called the bridge and got our LAT/LONG.)

Sal