Hi all,

I'm not an amateur radio operator, but I do have the 1997 ARRL handbook, I am capable of understanding most of what it says, and this is definitely a question for a ham operator.

I live out in the country where the internet barely reaches and little radio stations are weak. My wife has recently taken to needing to listen to the ghost hunters show at 10 to midnight Sunday nights on KLBP which seems to me to be 5kW. It comes in acceptably during the day, but at night it's extremely weak and seems to be interfered with by another station. Maybe KLBP has to reduce their power at night. I don't know.

Now, instead of listening to the show Sunday night I can download the pod-cast Monday at work and give that to her. But if you're going to listen the the ghost hunting show, it seems much better to do it live, late at night, on an AM radio. Besides, that raises the possibility of calling in sometime.

A huge loop seems like overkill and not directional anyway. I don't think I have room for a dipole (is that 318 ft?). What I'm inventing in my own head is a loop with lots of turns. I think they used them in the old days. They were like a coil of wire mounted on a 2 ft by 3 ft board. Would (1005/1.47 = 684) feet of wire in a 3 ft diameter coil form some kind of ghost show antenna (for KLBP)?

I'm quite capable of reading parts of the ARRL handbook, ordering stuff from Digi-Key, and soldering. Where should I start? What about making it amplified?

BTW, here's my crystal radio that currently doesn't do anything because it doesn't have an antenna. http://www.visi.com/~dwinker/ddd_xtal_radio/ (It is finished now. I gotta get a final picture up now that I've posted this). It'd be cool if I could make that work again. I wouldn't feel to bad if it took an amplified antenna to make it work.

Thanks,
Dan