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Use Google to research this topic, there have been several threads on it and I
think the Delco car radios were usually rated highly. My stock stereo in my '92 Subaru does a fine job on AM. jw K9RZZ Milwaukee |
J999w wrote:
Use Google to research this topic, there have been several threads on it and I think the Delco car radios were usually rated highly. My stock stereo in my '92 Subaru does a fine job on AM. I've had really good luck with most car radios. Nighttime reception is usually very good, especially considering the short antenna. On the weaker stations the reception will vary noticeably as the car turns in different directions. A ground plane effect by the body, I would imagine. I've been scrounging the salvage places for a Sony shortwave dash radio, but no luck. Most places have never even heard of it. mike |
if
people are choosing AM radios based only on price, then they are likely getting poor radios. If most people don't notice the difference between a good radio an I don't thimk that's the problem. Even the expensive AM/FM radios made today sem to not be able to pick up AM anywhere near as well as the old ones. I would call all of the modern AM radios I have seen very very very poor at picking up radio signals in the AM broadcast band, although good at picking up signals in the FM broadcast band. I have come to the conclusion (my opinion) that the real reason today's AM radios are so poor as compred to the old ones of the 70's and earlier is that today's manufacturerrs think that AM isn't popular, so why bother making it pick up AM good? FM is the popular band. Well, they're right that FM is the popular band, and that AM isn't popular anymore like it was in the early 70's and before. But to me, that still isn't any excuse to make cheap radios. In my opinion, IF a radio is sold as covering the AM band, then it SHOULD be able to pick up the AM band good. But unfortunately, that's not the case. In my opinion, if you want good AM reception, you're probably better off going with an old radio manufactured in the early 1970's or before. Somewhere in the 1970's (1975?), FM first gained popularity over AM |
In many, many applications today where an AM tuner is included (a
low-priced stereo reciever is a good example) the AM circuitry is not even as good as the better "pocket" transistor radios of the 1960's. The designer's view is: "Hey, they aren't buying a stereo rceiver to listen to AM, fercryinoutloud!" - and they save some nickles there exactly. That has been my experience also. No matter what modern radios I buy or hear at someone else's house (no matter what the price is) does not do good at picking up AM and in fact, is very poor at picking up AM, while the FM side is good. While the old radios I have seen pick up AM as well as today's radios pick up FM. The FM broadcast band first gained popularity over the AM broadcast band sometime in the mid-1970's to late 1970's). altthough I'm not sure when the manufacturers decided to stop making AM reception on radios any good. The older radios are probably the better bet for good AM reception, in my opinion. |
"Tony Meloche" wrote in message ... In many, many applications today where an AM tuner is included (a low-priced stereo reciever is a good example) the AM circuitry is not even as good as the better "pocket" transistor radios of the 1960's. The designer's view is: "Hey, they aren't buying a stereo rceiver to listen to AM, fercryinoutloud!" - and they save some nickles there. The difference between a workable AM circuit and a really *good* AM circuit is the width of the Grand Canyon. Huh. That's got me wondering if one or more of the suppliers has come up with a cheap, crummy AM section. Generally, I don't expect most of the manufacturers to do much design. They like to use as many industry standard parts as possible. If the crummy AM section becomes the industry standard part, it will greately drive down the manufacturing volume of the better part, even if there's only a nickel's difference at the start. Back in the AA5 days, there was a AA4 which didn't use an IF amplifier tube or a second IF transformer. They were around, but they were known poor performers and not very popular. Another possibility is poor alignment, especially with ceramic filters. Inexpensive ceramic filters might not fall exactly on their nominal frequency. I have a Realistic DX-100 like that. I suppose it was factory aligned at 455 kHz, but the IF had a double peak. I realigned it to the center frequency of the ceramic filter and the adjacent channel rejection got much better and the sensitivity went up. Doing a careful alignment takes a little extra time but the manufacturers hate that sort of thing, especially on assembly lines. I noticed Doug Smith's post on the increase in noise and interference. Those are important points and he's right. Agreed. What modern (new or used) AM radio can I buy that can pull in distant stations? I have a Realistic DX440, which does a good job. Others have tried and like the GE superradio and CC radio. The GE is much less expensive. SuperRadio III is a very good AMDX machine, but the dial pointer is certainly not the last word in accuracy. Still, with a good longwire, or even a select-a-tenna, it gives excellent performance. My AMDX log from my shack here in SW Michigan is 112 verified stations so far with the Superadio III, and I'm not done covering the bands from all directions yet. Tony Just have to count those 10kHz steps, especially if you're DXing in the dark! Frank Dresser |
"Doug Smith W9WI" wrote in message ... [snip] I don't recall ever seeing a radio design with more than one amplifier stage before the mixer. Two or more RF stages were used on high end single conversion radios to reduce images. These designs were largely replaced with double conversion designs. Frank Dresser |
!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"
html pPaul_Morphy wrote: blockquote TYPE=CITEI agree, Paul. When I was working in the Oil Patch in 1984, my little Datsun (also a bygone name) only had an AM radio. Most mornings on the way in to the office site I would tune in the news and at the end of the hour they always had the farm report. It helped to remind me that there were a lot of people in those areas that made their livings in ways other than by working for the Seven Sisters. On the whole however, other than the local news programs there was little worth tuning in to; even then the AM dial was full of talk show drek./blockquote pbrAs to the original topic, I find I can do some nice DXing with my Radio Shack SW-100. The "direction finder" on the top is actually the ferrite bar, which allows me to turn the antenna up to 35 degrees in either direction without moving the radio. When I add the Radio Shack AM loop antenna, here in southern Maine I'm able to pick a bunch of Canadian stations, both French and English, and a whole lot of balsams. These old radios can be had for about $20 on ebay. pHave fun! pPete Davis blockquote TYPE=CITE pAs long as we're kvetching about AM, what bothers me is that so many brstations just run satellite feeds and there is very little diversity in brprogramming. Broadcasting has become too homogenized. It's fun to pick up brdistant stations but the program content that made it interesting in the brpast is rarely there. When you heard the hog report from some little town brwest of nowhere, you _knew_ you were DXing! p"PM"/blockquote /html |
!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"
html I meant a whole lot of ball games, not balsams. Operator spell check error. Sorry. We have a lot of trees here in Maine, but they're no more worth listening to than the talk show bozos. pPete Davis pPete & Renee Davis wrote: blockquote TYPE=CITE pPaul_Morphy wrote: blockquote TYPE=CITEI agree, Paul. When I was working in the Oil Patch in 1984, my little Datsun (also a bygone name) only had an AM radio. Most mornings on the way in to the office site I would tune in the news and at the end of the hour they always had the farm report. It helped to remind me that there were a lot of people in those areas that made their livings in ways other than by working for the Seven Sisters. On the whole however, other than the local news programs there was little worth tuning in to; even then the AM dial was full of talk show drek./blockquote pbrAs to the original topic, I find I can do some nice DXing with my Radio Shack SW-100. The "direction finder" on the top is actually the ferrite bar, which allows me to turn the antenna up to 35 degrees in either direction without moving the radio. When I add the Radio Shack AM loop antenna, here in southern Maine I'm able to pick a bunch of Canadian stations, both French and English, and a whole lot of balsams. These old radios can be had for about $20 on ebay. pHave fun! pPete Davis blockquote TYPE=CITE pAs long as we're kvetching about AM, what bothers me is that so many brstations just run satellite feeds and there is very little diversity in brprogramming. Broadcasting has become too homogenized. It's fun to pick up brdistant stations but the program content that made it interesting in the brpast is rarely there. When you heard the hog report from some little town brwest of nowhere, you _knew_ you were DXing! p"PM"/blockquote /blockquote /html |
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