Listening to NYC AM near Washington D.C.
 

Get my friend out of his car!!! He's a lifelong New Yorker who has
moved to Gaithersburg, MD, a bit NW of Washington, D.C. He's a diehard
fan of NYC sports talk station WFAN (not streamed on the net), 770 Am.
He can get it on his car radio, but not in the house. So he'll sit in
his driveway at night listening to The Fan. Obviously, he's got a
better antenna in the car. So how can I help him put a good AM antenna
in his house??? I've seen the C Crane site, and a Terk unit or two.
I'm not terribly interested in a homebrew solution.

I've considered setting up an audio server here in New York so he
could tap in, but that's another discussion.

In article , Higgins wrote:
Get my friend out of his car!!! He's a lifelong New Yorker who has
moved to Gaithersburg, MD, a bit NW of Washington, D.C. He's a diehard
fan of NYC sports talk station WFAN (not streamed on the net), 770 Am.
He can get it on his car radio, but not in the house. So he'll sit in
his driveway at night listening to The Fan. Obviously, he's got a
better antenna in the car. So how can I help him put a good AM antenna
in his house??? I've seen the C Crane site, and a Terk unit or two.
I'm not terribly interested in a homebrew solution.

Why not? A longwire antenna will beat any of the active antennas hands down.
Problem is that it may be so good that you'll find yourself needing a more
selective radio.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
In article , Higgins
wrote:
I'm not terribly interested in a homebrew solution.

Why not? A longwire antenna will beat any of the active antennas hands
down.
Problem is that it may be so good that you'll find yourself needing a more
selective radio.

If the friend lives in Montgomery Village, Gaithersburg, outdoor antennas
are prohibited, so it would have to be a stealth one. All of the
subdivisions started in Montgomery County in the past 45 years forbid
antennas, to the best of my knowledge.

That said, I'd certainly try some sort of wire antenna even indoors or
temporarily outdoors before going the Terk/etc route.

Is the friend in an apartment? Does it have a balcony? If in a house, does
it have a deck, a wooden fence, even a short one? What sort of "indoor"
receiver does the friend have?

Scott Dorsey wrote:

In article , Higgins wrote:
Get my friend out of his car!!! He's a lifelong New Yorker who has
moved to Gaithersburg, MD, a bit NW of Washington, D.C. He's a diehard
fan of NYC sports talk station WFAN (not streamed on the net), 770 Am.
He can get it on his car radio, but not in the house. So he'll sit in
his driveway at night listening to The Fan. Obviously, he's got a
better antenna in the car. So how can I help him put a good AM antenna
in his house??? I've seen the C Crane site, and a Terk unit or two.
I'm not terribly interested in a homebrew solution.

Why not? A longwire antenna will beat any of the active antennas hands down.
Problem is that it may be so good that you'll find yourself needing a more
selective radio.

It's probably not the antenna. Signals are plenty strong at night. More likely
selectivity of the receiver.

The Sony 7600GR on sale at Bennett Bros for $109 is a great deal, with really
high selectivity (owing hugely to sync detection and selectable sideband) for
the price; and you get shortwave too.

http://cyg.bennettbrothers.com:80/bl...emb er%5Fnum=

Want to use it (or any radio) also _in the daytime_ out to hundreds of miles range on the AM band?
Get a passive MW loop, say the Terk loop, to set beside it. It's a tuned circuit, a big coil and
a variable capacitor is all, that matches the impedance of the internal loopstick antennas in AM
radios to free space, letting you in most radios hear right down to the propagating noise level;
which is the best you can do with any small antenna.

This matters only in the daytime. At night, all the AM band signals are strong; there's too
many of them, is the problem then.

In the daytime, D-layer absorption soaks them all up leaving only groundwave signals, which are
genuinely weak.

Probably you can only hear the FAN at night from DC, though I don't know. I've heard it at noon
in Central Ohio http://rhhardin4.home.mindspring.com/wfannoon.ra

--
Ron Hardin


On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

R J Carpenter wrote:
"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
In article , Higgins
wrote:
I'm not terribly interested in a homebrew solution.

Why not? A longwire antenna will beat any of the active antennas hands
down.
Problem is that it may be so good that you'll find yourself needing a more
selective radio.

If the friend lives in Montgomery Village, Gaithersburg, outdoor antennas
are prohibited, so it would have to be a stealth one. All of the
subdivisions started in Montgomery County in the past 45 years forbid
antennas, to the best of my knowledge.

A little #22 magnet wire under the eaves will do an amazing job and nobody
will ever be the wiser. I did this in apartments and college dorms for
years for receiving and transmitting. I had a 40M dipole with trap coils
between my balcony and two adjacent buildings even, once.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Ron Hardin wrote in message ...
Probably you can only hear the FAN at night from DC, though I don't know. I've heard it at noon
in Central Ohio http://rhhardin4.home.mindspring.com/wfannoon.ra


My pal would probably listen to that, static and all.

I'll check out the Sony and help him play with antennas. I understand
his pain....should a longwire be any particular length for an AM
station at 770??? And is this one of those "yeah, a mile and a half"
issues??? My friend does have a house with a fairly good-sized yard...

On 20 Nov 2004 16:35:04 GMT, (Higgins) wrote:

He's a diehard
fan of NYC sports talk station WFAN (not streamed on the net), 770 Am.
He can get it on his car radio, but not in the house. So he'll sit in
his driveway at night listening to The Fan. Obviously, he's got a
better antenna in the car.

Probably a large part of his problem is that WFAN is on 660, not 770. ;)

He should try a GE Superadio or a Tecsun BCL2000
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=5733726786
I prefer the Tecsun because of the digital readout and better wide/narrow
filters than the GE. Both do amazingly well with no external antenna. Bbut
both also have external antenna inputs, with which you can try anything
from long wire to the C Crane twin-coil antenna
http://ccrane.com/am-antenna.aspx






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for receiving and transmitting. I had a 40M dipole with trap coils
between my balcony and two adjacent buildings even, once.

Hey Scott, do you know a place where I could get simple instructions for an AM
loop antenna for a modulation monitor? I have a surplus TFT 713 and would love
to use it to pick up 630 WMAL at home. Belar wants $345 for one of their
circular antennas but I'm sure I could build one cheaply with some PVC, wire
and some caps, right?

Dave Sproul, Bethesda. MD

In article , DaveSproul wrote:
for receiving and transmitting. I had a 40M dipole with trap coils
between my balcony and two adjacent buildings even, once.

Hey Scott, do you know a place where I could get simple instructions for an AM
loop antenna for a modulation monitor? I have a surplus TFT 713 and would love
to use it to pick up 630 WMAL at home. Belar wants $345 for one of their
circular antennas but I'm sure I could build one cheaply with some PVC, wire
and some caps, right?

The Toys for Tots should be fine with just a long wire attached to the
input. The loop antenna will have lower gain but higher directionality.
The real deal with the loop antenna, though, is that the gain on it is
calibrated and you're paying for the accurate calibration of a measurement
device. You don't want a measurement device, you just want as much gain
as you can get.

Dave Sproul, Bethesda. MD

Since Hardin and Weaver are gone, there's no reason to listen to WMAL. But I am
up in your neck of the woods on a monthly basis if you want to bring it over
and try it with a wire.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."