is there anything besides a better antenna to upgrade the AM radio signal? my freind loves oldies radio and i have bought a terk 50 buck antenna, and it works ok, but the signal fades in and out at different times of the day, so just wondered if anyone had luck with any other product.

Once upon a decade , I was a "DXer", which meant I sought distant radio signals as a hobby. An outdoor antenna is the only way to achieve maximum performance, and are simple to make. A "longwire" antenna is a random length piece of wire (longer is better) installed as high above ground as possible, with the "broadside" facing in the direction of the desired signals.

Bri

You mean you can't get KOMA in Seattle?!?!?

Brian probably gets the joke and anybody else from Oklahoma...

For those that don't know...
KOMA was/is(?) an oldies station in Oklahoma that, I swear, had the strongest signal ever!
I remember being a kid and randomly hearing KOMA coming through just about anything all the time...you could hear it coming through the TV no matter what channel you were on. It came through amps and PA systems, radios that were not even tuned to KOMA. I even heard a story about a guy's toilet that played KOMA, though I'm not really sure about that....

My dad loves am radio...

http://www.hard-core-dx.com/nordicdx...op/amloop.html

thanks for the tip brian. if you happen by here again, since an AM lead is two conductor, how do you resolve the one long wire into them? and is it possible to use coax to "pipe"the signal into the house after it has been captured outside, or should the one wire continue to the receiver. o course it's 300 ohm at the box but 75 ohm cable is not 75 ohm til its terminated, so would you use it? mainly for durability and appearance.

it is funny how weird am signals show up in places. and braces, or so the tale goes.

informative site max heh

The sensitivity of the radio can help too. The GE super III and the CCRadio are both pretty sensitive and selective.



-tINY

My original reply was "shooting from the hip". Dan. What is the frequency of the desired AM station? A half-wave dipole might be the answer if the desired station is towards the upper end of the AM band. Regardless, the "Radio Amateur's Handbook" is the de-facto bible for such things as antennas at MW and SW frequencies.

SoundChances, hehe..yes, KOMA at 1520 kHz has been quite the "blowtorch from the prairie" for many years. One of my long-time friends grew up in Barstow, CA before moving into the OKC area approx. 1974, and he was a regular listener of KOMA when he was a kid growing up in CA back in the 1960's. Sadly, KOMA (now KOKC) no longer runs a top-40/oldies format, but instead broadcasts ****.....errrr...... ultra-right-wing talk radio. When morons like Michael Savage rant about the Fox News network being "soft" and "liberal" in their news coverage, you KNOW you've wandered into the far-right!!!

Nevertheless, the three-tower array of KOMA/KOKC is a frequent thing I see when travelling south along I-35 through Moore, OK on my way to various clients in the "south 'burb" of Norman, OK" which is sort of a "miniature Austin, TX"...

http://www.fybush.com/sites/2004/site-040122.html

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin...=AM&service=AM

Bri

I used to live just a half mile from the KOMA towers, it made band practice hell when we practiced at my house, between every song we'd play we'd get a blast from the past from our amps!
My parents still live on the south side of OKC and I see those towers all the time and still curse them to this day!
I'll be driving by them on Sunday and I'll be sure to shoot the bird to them one more time for all the hell they caused me back in High School!

Sorry danickstr that I didn't add anything to this thread to help you out, I just saw AM radio and got a flashback from the days of living within spitting distance of one of, if not the, strongest AM signal towers in this part of the country....

The RF levels in Moore are horrendous, especially as that city has grown up around the KOMA/KOKC tower array. When it was originally built, it was out in the boondocks!

I can imagine the RF is even worse to the West and NW of the array at night when they run a directional pattern (see my link to "radio locator", above). Someone, somewhere once told me the effective radiated power in those directions at night is roughly equivalent to a 250 kW station running non-directional!

Many years ago, when wearing my "PBX service hat", I worked on a Mitel phone system installed in a motel on the East side of I-35, and KOMA was so strong you could hear it above the dial tone created locally inside the Mitel switch! That was the ONLY Mitel I ever had with any serious RF problems.

Bri