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

My stock stereo in my '92 Subaru does a fine job on AM.


yes. car radios seem to do good on AM, even the modern ones.

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.

jw
K9RZZ
Milwaukee



The AM car radios of yesteryear were terrific DX machines. Boyhood
friend of mine (this was mid-sixties) had one salvaged from a 56 Buick
that he rigged up to a 120AC to 12V DC power supply, and added a wire
antenna. Fabulous DX radio!

The Old Guy

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.

The AM section in the Cambridge Audio Model T500 tuner is good, and it is a
dual conversion design. The sound of it is nothing to write home about,
though.

Pete

"Mediaguy500" 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

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

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

************rest snipped****************

You have one of those Frank? You like? LOL. I love mine. I had two and traded
with DXZoner, who used to post in here about a year ago.

It was my first 'I thought' real receiver. I think the definition of your
'first' receiver is the one that peaked your curiousity and then you continued
in the radio hobby.

That's the DX100 for me. Matter of fact, I went in the living room about
fifteen minutes ago and turned it on to let it warm up. It's in mint condition,
got the box and papers for it. Had a tech buddie of mine get in it with his
equipment and he said it was just a tad off. I don't know how much a tad
was/is. But I'll measure it with my DX399 hooked to a yo-yo antenna wire from
Bil'ls company (that antenna has been everywhere and been put through crap) and
match it up to see the exact freq. at it's always dead on.

But it has to be on for about a good 45minutes to be stable. How's the drift on
yours? When does it even out for you on your piece?

~^Monitoring The Spectrum^~
Hammarlund HQ129X /Heathkit Q Multiplier
Hammarlund HQ140X
Multiple GE P-780's(GREAT BCB Radios)
RCA Victor *Strato- World*
RCA Victor RJC77W-K(Walnut Grain)
1942 Zenith Wave Magnet 6G 601M
Cathedral/ Ross#2311/Rhapsody-MultiBand
DX100/394/*SUPER*398/399/402
OMGS Transistor Eight/Realistic 12-1451
Henry Kloss Model One/Bell+Howell
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Alpha Delta DX Sloper 57ft.
500ft. 12AWG. (non-terminated)
120ft. 12 AWG Sloper
2 Radio Shack Loop Antennas
Radio Shack Amplified Antenna
30X30 DiamondLoop(six section 830pf Cap)
* Diamond Loop mounted to Lazy Susan TurnTable*
*21/2X2ft.FiveSpoked~Penta-Loop~PancakeLoop*

"GO BEARCATS" wrote in message
...

You have one of those Frank? You like? LOL. I love mine. I had two and
traded
with DXZoner, who used to post in here about a year ago.

I've got mixed feelings about it. The sensitivity and selectitivity are OK.
The radio rejects power line noise well. It doesn't use much power, and it
looks like it would be easy to make an external battery pack for it if I
wanted to go portable with it.


The image rejection is poor, especially on the top two bands. The stability
is OK for AM.. None of the problems are unexpected on an unexpensive radio.

In my opinion, the radio's real drawback is it's tuning. The tuning has too
much drag and backlash. It feels rubbery. The dial graduations are too
coarse. The fine tuning isn't nearly as useful as a real bandspread.

I've only seen pictures of the DX-200. It does have a sort of family
resembelance to the DX-100. The DX-200 looks to have better dial
graduations and a real bandspread. If the 200 is the 100 with better
tuning, it's probably a pretty good radio.

The DX-100 is a decent radio for AM DXing. I can often hear WLW during the
day here in the Chicago area off the internal ferrite antenna. The radio's
weaknesses get more troublesome on the higher bands.



It was my first 'I thought' real receiver. I think the definition of your
'first' receiver is the one that peaked your curiousity and then you
continued
in the radio hobby.

That's the DX100 for me. Matter of fact, I went in the living room about
fifteen minutes ago and turned it on to let it warm up. It's in mint
condition,
got the box and papers for it. Had a tech buddie of mine get in it with
his
equipment and he said it was just a tad off. I don't know how much a tad
was/is. But I'll measure it with my DX399 hooked to a yo-yo antenna wire
from
Bil'ls company (that antenna has been everywhere and been put through
crap) and
match it up to see the exact freq. at it's always dead on.

But it has to be on for about a good 45minutes to be stable. How's the
drift on
yours? When does it even out for you on your piece?


Maybe fifteen minutes to half an hour and there's no noticable drift on AM.
It never stabilizes enough to be "set and forget" on SSB. It will drift
noticably with room temperature changes.

Frank Dresser

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