Tuner reception

[mulester7]

.....guys, I'm serious as a screen-door on a submarine, would running normal coated speaker-wire around the top of your dedicated theater room make a good antennae for either AM or FM?....please channel all replies to cell-phone number BR-549.....

 

[mulester7]

.....no visionaries out there, huh?.....

 

[MacManNM]

.....guys, I'm serious as a screen-door on a submarine, would running normal coated speaker-wire around the top of your dedicated theater room make a good antennae for either AM or FM?....please channel all replies to cell-phone number BR-549.....

Actually mule, speaker wire can workquite well for an antenna. 2 pieces of single conductor speaker wire about 1.5 ft long connected to the FM antenna terminals will give you about 3db of gain! Works quite well in a pinch.

 

[jaxvon]

.....guys, I'm serious as a screen-door on a submarine, would running normal coated speaker-wire around the top of your dedicated theater room make a good antennae for either AM or FM?....please channel all replies to cell-phone number BR-549.....

Or if you still have one of those big 'ol rotating rooftop antennas from the olde days of TV (like I still do), you can use that for your FM as well.

 

[mulester7]

.....Mac and Jaxvon, there was an old TV antenna on the roof at one time, but it ain't there now....guys, I live in the bottom part of a two-story house that's built on a slight hillside....the top level of the house shows to the front, and both levels show to the back....what should I use for radio antennaes in the 13x35 room my theater occupies about 70 % of?.....an antennae that uses AC?....surely you won't say cheap little di-poles....I'm really considering speaker-wire around the top of the room.....

 

[jaxvon]

.....Mac and Jaxvon, there was an old TV antenna on the roof at one time, but it ain't there now....guys, I live in the bottom part of a two-story house that's built on a slight hillside....the top level of the house shows to the front, and both levels show to the back....what should I use for radio antennaes in the 13x35 room my theater occupies about 70 % of?.....an antennae that uses AC?....surely you won't say cheap little di-poles....I'm really considering speaker-wire around the top of the room.....

Well, I don't think you could hurt anything by doing it. And seeing how speaker wire is so cheap (no need to use your favorite 8ga Sound King), the only investment really is the time you'd spend putting it up.

 

[mulester7]

Well, I don't think you could hurt anything by doing it. And seeing how speaker wire is so cheap (no need to use your favorite 8ga Sound King), the only investment really is the time you'd spend putting it up.

.....Jaxvon, I remember about 30 years ago going into a hardware store and paying one dollar a foot for 12 ga. two-sided lampcord to use for speaker-wire....now, I'm gettin' this Sound King 8 ga. for 75 cents a foot to my door....I probably will use it to run both AM and FM antenneraters....yeah, the plural.....

 

[vividere]

AM reception SUCKS...

It seems for a long time the receiver manufacturers have been ignorning AM to the point they have almost dropped it like the phono jack. I was really sad to see my old Sony receiver die as at least the AM side of it worked.

I have a new RX-V1500 and it has MUCH worse AM reception than the old Sony. I happen to live in an older house that has what is called a plate hook lip or something like that around the molding at the top of the wall. I ran a piece of wire arond the groove in the moulding as I could do that without it showing. I hooked that up to one side of the AM connector and ground to the other side. It great amplified the signal but made it MUCH worse. I am about 20 miles as the crow flies from two 50KW AM stations. 1130 and 1500. With the tuner on 1500 I can't hear 1500 as 1130 overrides it. That is during the day. During the night 1500 changes it's wattage and pattern (don't know what 1130 does) but I can hear 1500 much better when they change their wattage (lower) and their signal pattern.

There is NO way 1130 should come through a tuner at 1500.

I wish when guys like Gene did their receiver reviews the would test AM and slam the companies that have let their tuner quality slip so badly.

I am listening to a portable $30 Sony AM/FM/SW/Weather radio as it has NO trouble locking on the right frequency. I have read more than one story about people taking an old car radio, antenna, and a 12V converter and using that for AM reception.

Pretty pathetic....

 

[markw]

Yep. AM is a lost cause.

It seems for a long time the receiver manufacturers have been ignorning AM to the point they have almost dropped it like the phono jack. I was really sad to see my old Sony receiver die as at least the AM side of it worked.

I have a new RX-V1500 and it has MUCH worse AM reception than the old Sony. I happen to live in an older house that has what is called a plate hook lip or something like that around the molding at the top of the wall. I ran a piece of wire arond the groove in the moulding as I could do that without it showing. I hooked that up to one side of the AM connector and ground to the other side. It great amplified the signal but made it MUCH worse. I am about 20 miles as the crow flies from two 50KW AM stations. 1130 and 1500. With the tuner on 1500 I can't hear 1500 as 1130 overrides it. That is during the day. During the night 1500 changes it's wattage and pattern (don't know what 1130 does) but I can hear 1500 much better when they change their wattage (lower) and their signal pattern.

There is NO way 1130 should come through a tuner at 1500.

I wish when guys like Gene did their receiver reviews the would test AM and slam the companies that have let their tuner quality slip so badly.

I am listening to a portable $30 Sony AM/FM/SW/Weather radio as it has NO trouble locking on the right frequency. I have read more than one story about people taking an old car radio, antenna, and a 12V converter and using that for AM reception.

Pretty pathetic....

I don't even bother with AM on the big rigs. I DO use a moderately large 60 year old Sears Silvertone table radio (with the original 6 X 9" speaker) for that. Great reception and great sound from a device that was made specifically for one purpose. Great AM sound. ...and it looks great in the room to boot.

Seriously, if AM means anything at all to ya, look into a vintage radio.

 

[vividere]

I have a vintage radio. A Crosby built around 1936. I went to the trouble years ago to replace all the bad caps, get replacement tubes, etc. and had it work, not great, but had it working. Then while on a business trip my then roommates cranked my stereo up and blew out the speakers. In their infinite wisdom they took the huge speaker out of radio, hooked it up behind the stereo and thought I would be fooled into thinking everything was fine. What they didn't realize was that the old speakers didn't have magnets, they had fields. As a result the speaker didn't do a thing and they didn't even put the speaker back. Came home to find only one tweeter working out of two 3-2ays and two 2-ways. Of course they shrugged their shoulders and said they didn't know what happened. I stil have the radio but never bothered getting to work again. It has one of those "tuning eyes" on it...way cool.