• How to Make the Ultimate AM Antenna

    From Michael Trew@21:1/5 to All on Sat Jul 24 23:27:50 2021
    "Carver Corporation of Lynnwood, Washington once made the ultimate AM
    Stereo/FM Stereo tuner, the Carver TX-11b. The performance of this tuner
    was nothing short of spectacular on FM; the AM side was even more
    impressive, as it was designed to have an audio bandwidth of 20 Hz - 15
    KHz -- the same as broadcast FM!"

    http://socalradiowaves.com/columns/am_antenna.html

    I'd like to make this at some point soon to start pulling in long
    distance AM transmissions in the evenings. I rarely have the motivation
    to try that at home anymore; sometimes I will in my car.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From pfjw@aol.com@21:1/5 to Michael Trew on Sun Jul 25 03:41:41 2021
    On Saturday, July 24, 2021 at 11:27:46 PM UTC-4, Michael Trew wrote:
    "Carver Corporation of Lynnwood, Washington once made the ultimate AM Stereo/FM Stereo tuner, the Carver TX-11b.

    Someone is telling little porkies.... I have an Antenna book written in 1928 that has half-a-dozen variants on that design. Carver may be many things - but reinventors of the wheel - not hardly.

    Peter Wieck
    Melrose Park, PA

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Michael Trew@21:1/5 to pf...@aol.com on Sun Jul 25 19:19:46 2021
    On 7/25/2021 6:41 AM, pf...@aol.com wrote:
    On Saturday, July 24, 2021 at 11:27:46 PM UTC-4, Michael Trew wrote:
    "Carver Corporation of Lynnwood, Washington once made the ultimate AM
    Stereo/FM Stereo tuner, the Carver TX-11b.

    Someone is telling little porkies.... I have an Antenna book written in 1928 that has half-a-dozen variants on that design. Carver may be many things - but reinventors of the wheel - not hardly.

    Peter Wieck
    Melrose Park, PA


    I've heard of people making huge AM loop antennas in their attics... if
    you have a better design or one that's easier to make, please do share
    before I start on one at some point here!

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From pfjw@aol.com@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jul 26 03:33:51 2021
    I've heard of people making huge AM loop antennas in their attics... if
    you have a better design or one that's easier to make, please do share
    before I start on one at some point here!

    I will have to dig out the book and scan a few pages for you. Give me a bit.

    Peter Wieck
    Melrose Park, PA

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jim Mueller@21:1/5 to Michael Trew on Mon Jul 26 18:30:28 2021
    On Sun, 25 Jul 2021 19:19:46 -0400, Michael Trew wrote:

    On 7/25/2021 6:41 AM, pf...@aol.com wrote:
    On Saturday, July 24, 2021 at 11:27:46 PM UTC-4, Michael Trew wrote:
    "Carver Corporation of Lynnwood, Washington once made the ultimate AM
    Stereo/FM Stereo tuner, the Carver TX-11b.

    Someone is telling little porkies.... I have an Antenna book written in
    1928 that has half-a-dozen variants on that design. Carver may be many
    things - but reinventors of the wheel - not hardly.

    Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA


    I've heard of people making huge AM loop antennas in their attics... if
    you have a better design or one that's easier to make, please do share
    before I start on one at some point here!


    Search the Internet; there are many sites that describe loop antennas.
    Most of them are tuned as opposed to the untuned one described in the
    link above. Tuning makes them more responsive to a particular frequency
    than an untuned loop. It also requires that the user tune the loop each
    time he changes frequency. Some of the loops on the Internet have a
    Faraday shield which helps reduce interference from local sources.

    Any loop antenna by itself is unlikely to work well with a car radio.
    Car radios are optimized to work with the antenna that came with the
    car. Some intermediate circuitry will be needed.


    --
    Jim Mueller wrongname@nospam.com

    To get my real email address, replace wrongname with eggmen.
    Then replace nospam with expressmail. Lastly, replace com with dk.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Michael Trew@21:1/5 to pf...@aol.com on Mon Jul 26 16:08:15 2021
    On 7/26/2021 6:33 AM, pf...@aol.com wrote:
    I've heard of people making huge AM loop antennas in their attics... if
    you have a better design or one that's easier to make, please do share
    before I start on one at some point here!

    I will have to dig out the book and scan a few pages for you. Give me a bit.

    Peter Wieck
    Melrose Park, PA

    Thank you! Take your time, I am in no rush, and I have a backlog of
    projects here anyway.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Michael Trew@21:1/5 to Jim Mueller on Mon Jul 26 16:09:11 2021
    On 7/26/2021 2:30 PM, Jim Mueller wrote:
    On Sun, 25 Jul 2021 19:19:46 -0400, Michael Trew wrote:

    On 7/25/2021 6:41 AM, pf...@aol.com wrote:
    On Saturday, July 24, 2021 at 11:27:46 PM UTC-4, Michael Trew wrote:
    "Carver Corporation of Lynnwood, Washington once made the ultimate AM
    Stereo/FM Stereo tuner, the Carver TX-11b.

    Someone is telling little porkies.... I have an Antenna book written in
    1928 that has half-a-dozen variants on that design. Carver may be many
    things - but reinventors of the wheel - not hardly.

    Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA


    I've heard of people making huge AM loop antennas in their attics... if
    you have a better design or one that's easier to make, please do share
    before I start on one at some point here!


    Search the Internet; there are many sites that describe loop antennas.
    Most of them are tuned as opposed to the untuned one described in the
    link above. Tuning makes them more responsive to a particular frequency
    than an untuned loop. It also requires that the user tune the loop each
    time he changes frequency. Some of the loops on the Internet have a
    Faraday shield which helps reduce interference from local sources.

    Any loop antenna by itself is unlikely to work well with a car radio.
    Car radios are optimized to work with the antenna that came with the
    car. Some intermediate circuitry will be needed.



    I had an old console radio with an internal antenna that could be
    adjusted, I wondered what the purpose of that was. It looked like it
    had some kind of foil shield/box incorporated into it. Thanks!

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jim Mueller@21:1/5 to Michael Trew on Tue Jul 27 23:39:19 2021
    On Mon, 26 Jul 2021 16:09:11 -0400, Michael Trew wrote:

    On 7/26/2021 2:30 PM, Jim Mueller wrote:
    On Sun, 25 Jul 2021 19:19:46 -0400, Michael Trew wrote:

    On 7/25/2021 6:41 AM, pf...@aol.com wrote:
    On Saturday, July 24, 2021 at 11:27:46 PM UTC-4, Michael Trew wrote:
    "Carver Corporation of Lynnwood, Washington once made the ultimate
    AM Stereo/FM Stereo tuner, the Carver TX-11b.

    Someone is telling little porkies.... I have an Antenna book written
    in 1928 that has half-a-dozen variants on that design. Carver may be
    many things - but reinventors of the wheel - not hardly.

    Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA


    I've heard of people making huge AM loop antennas in their attics...
    if you have a better design or one that's easier to make, please do
    share before I start on one at some point here!


    Search the Internet; there are many sites that describe loop antennas.
    Most of them are tuned as opposed to the untuned one described in the
    link above. Tuning makes them more responsive to a particular
    frequency than an untuned loop. It also requires that the user tune
    the loop each time he changes frequency. Some of the loops on the
    Internet have a Faraday shield which helps reduce interference from
    local sources.

    Any loop antenna by itself is unlikely to work well with a car radio.
    Car radios are optimized to work with the antenna that came with the
    car. Some intermediate circuitry will be needed.



    I had an old console radio with an internal antenna that could be
    adjusted, I wondered what the purpose of that was. It looked like it
    had some kind of foil shield/box incorporated into it. Thanks!

    Some radios have rotatable loop antennas. Loop antennas are
    directional. They can be rotated to maximize signal pickup from a
    certain direction or to minimize interference from some other direction.
    If the station and the interference come from the same direction you are
    out of luck.



    --
    Jim Mueller wrongname@nospam.com

    To get my real email address, replace wrongname with eggmen.
    Then replace nospam with expressmail. Lastly, replace com with dk.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From pfjw@aol.com@21:1/5 to All on Sat Jul 31 07:16:27 2021
    From Hugo Gernsback's 1922 opus - "The Future of Radio" - paraphrased for brevity:

    A loop antenna may be from 12" to 120" across diagonally, usually consisting of between 5 and 15 turns of wire. Coupling to the radio may be direct, or indirect. As the loop antenna does away with the ground connection, one end of the loop may connect to
    ground, the other to the antenna input. Try both ways.

    A small-value variable capacitor may be placed in series with the antenna connection for tuning purposes.

    A loop antenna is highly directional, even a few degrees off the ideal angle may cut off all reception.

    A loop antenna may be coupled with another loop antenna (placed close together) to increase the receiving bandwidth. In this case, a small variable capacitor may be placed within the loop for fine tuning.

    That took about 4 pages.

    Peter Wieck
    Melrose Park, PA

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Michael Trew@21:1/5 to pf...@aol.com on Sun Aug 1 21:48:55 2021
    On 7/31/2021 10:16 AM, pf...@aol.com wrote:
    From Hugo Gernsback's 1922 opus - "The Future of Radio" - paraphrased for brevity:

    A loop antenna may be from 12" to 120" across diagonally, usually consisting of between 5 and 15 turns of wire. Coupling to the radio may be direct, or indirect. As the loop antenna does away with the ground connection, one end of the loop may connect
    to ground, the other to the antenna input. Try both ways.

    A small-value variable capacitor may be placed in series with the antenna connection for tuning purposes.

    A loop antenna is highly directional, even a few degrees off the ideal angle may cut off all reception.

    A loop antenna may be coupled with another loop antenna (placed close together) to increase the receiving bandwidth. In this case, a small variable capacitor may be placed within the loop for fine tuning.

    That took about 4 pages.

    Peter Wieck
    Melrose Park, PA


    Thank you!

    So basically, a loop antenna mounted in the attic might not be the best
    use of resources, since I can't tune it or alter it's angle/direction at
    all. Unless I wire in one of those old-school TV antenna directional
    devices that turn the antenna with a turn of the knob. I have the
    indoor mechanism around here somewhere, but the motor on the antenna
    outdoors is long gone. It seems that I'll have to build a smaller
    antenna atop my console radio that I can pivot for best reception when
    trying to tune in long-distance AM stations at night.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From pfjw@aol.com@21:1/5 to All on Mon Aug 2 09:38:15 2021
    https://www.staples.com/rca-vh226f-outdoor-antenna-rotator/product_24329332

    There is this - that will allow you to rotate the antenna from a distance. If you have enough 'swing' in your attic for a larger antenna than on top of the console, both the size and the height will give you an advantage. Again, loops are highly
    directional, so that might also mitigate towards a larger attic-mounted device as DXing is your stated goal.

    Enjoy!

    Peter Wieck
    Melrose Park, PA

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From pfjw@aol.com@21:1/5 to All on Sun Aug 8 08:30:23 2021
    Meant to add: All you need is 90 degrees of swing for a vertical loop, not the entire 360.

    Peter Wieck
    Melrose Park, PA

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Michael Trew@21:1/5 to pf...@aol.com on Sun Aug 8 22:23:29 2021
    On 8/2/2021 12:38 PM, pf...@aol.com wrote:
    https://www.staples.com/rca-vh226f-outdoor-antenna-rotator/product_24329332

    There is this - that will allow you to rotate the antenna from a distance. If you have enough 'swing' in your attic for a larger antenna than on top of the console, both the size and the height will give you an advantage. Again, loops are highly
    directional, so that might also mitigate towards a larger attic-mounted device as DXing is your stated goal.

    Enjoy!

    Peter Wieck
    Melrose Park, PA

    Thank you! I'll have to post back when I make one. Not likely until it
    cools down here, I'm swamped with outdoor house projects.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)