Tag: AM antenna

November 7, 2023 – Final AM Loop Antenna Results

November 7, 2023 /

Two worlds are colliding. The clean-up of the basement and my commitment to not leave things hanging have finally met. I wanted to get rid of this wire wrapped box that I have been hanging on to for almost two years now. But, I couldn’t get rid of it until I finally completed the modifications that I wanted to make.

One of the suggestions on my YouTube video was that my capacitor was not adequate. If you remember, it was an Aluminum foil wrapped card inside of an envelope. One of those was sandwiched between two others. The paper of the envelope acted as an insulator for the conductors and in theory, sliding the envelope back and forth was the fine tuning of the antenna.

I purchased an air capacitor that I see commonly used on DIY antenna videos. The plan was to replace the envelope capacitors with this relatively expensive component ($35) and hopefully this would be the trick. After the part arrived from Germany, I set about with this new round of experiments.

I decided to take what I thought was my worst AM tuner (an old Walkman… how about that) and the best AM tuner, my CCrane radio and test them outside and inside of the box. With the device inside the box, I would mess with the capacitor to see if there was any improvement in reception. Interestingly enough, the CCrane radio also has antenna inputs, so I tried that as well.

First of all, I will remind you that AM reception is directional. As far as I am concerned, I saw zero impact with respect to reception inside versus outside the box of either radio. It also appeared that any fiddling with the capacitor made no change to the reception. Orientation of the box with respect to the transmission tower did make a difference, but again there was no difference the radio itself.

What conclusion can I draw from this whole thing? The only thing that I can say conclusively is that this box antenna has no effect on reception. As a result I broke the whole thing down so that I could continue with my rampage of cleanup. I very well may try this again, but this time with different wire.

The wire I purchased was Aluminum at the second hand store. I wonder if changing from an insulated wire to a non-insulated one might help pick up signals. Buying a nice, new spool of wire kind of violates my principal of making this cheap or out of junk. To really get this dialed in on what components will work requires it to work in the first place. I just didn’t see that.

I don’t offer this enough, but if someone sees what I am doing wrong, by all means help me out. Now that I have outlaid the cash for a commercial antenna, I really don’t have any drive to put anymore energy into this endeavor. It is a good idea to learn from failure though.

End Your Programming Routine: When I first ran across the plans for this antenna, I had visions of young kids scavenging materials to gather around the radio and listen to a soccer game in some third world country. It may be that I don’t know what I don’t know but if that is the case, then this project is much more precise than I gave it (and I thought I followed the instructions to the letter). To be fair, I don’t have a full grasp of the science of antennas so it is possible that this can work, I have to say that my experience says it is not worth the time.

September 6, 2023 – 3, 2, 1… ???

September 6, 2023 /

There is a subplot that happens in the movie National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Clark spends a ton of time unwinding, testing and hanging Christmas lights. He calls everyone together and makes the final connection and nothing happens. Then he checks and rechecks everything with the same result. Finally, he gets so mad that he runs around and kicks the reindeer setup on the ground.

That pretty much describes my AM antenna experience (without the audience). This has been going on a long time with a lot of effort put out by me over time. I have tried to research this topic, I have built prototypes that didn’t work. I tried to extend the existing loop antenna outside, all to no avail.

It was about a year ago that I got up on the roof to install the antenna I purchased online. I after fishing the cable through the wall, I tested it. While not what I would like, it got the stations that I was looking for and it was much better than the loop antenna that came with the radio or the other solutions I tried.

The last piece of my stereo installation in my office was to get the AM antenna wire to the receiver. Of course to do that, I needed to move all of the Christmas decorations out of the corner to get proper access. Second to that, my basement is such a mess since my son moved out for our exchange student this summer. Stuff is piled anywhere there is space, I really had no where to move stuff. Somehow, I managed precariously pile up all the bins and boxes and retain a small isle for travel.

Reorganizing is something I do every fall. With this being a wet basement, I almost always spend time tidying up before it is too late. I am just as guilty at not putting things away properly in the summertime knowing that I will eventually pay the price in the fall. But, it does feel like the basement is where things go to die and I deal with the bodies.

I tied, fished and stapled the cable to my office without tripping or breaking something. The antenna is marketed for radio, (like ham) so it has a rather unique connector that looks like a miniature coax connector. If I was hooking it up to a radio, than easy peasy. But no, I had to devise a way to convert from coax to bare wire which I eventually found a device that I could modify to do that job.

I plugged it into my receiver and nothing. This was the moment that I almost started breaking stuff. I turned off the lights knowing that the fluorescent ballasts interfere with AM signal, no improvement. I sat back in my chair and thought, well I can stream anything that I want anyway. I guess that was a lot of work for no good reason other than I wanted it to work.

As I sat back in my chair, I thought how could this have gone wrong? This was the whole point of testing this setup before I moved it. I did add an extension to the original cable, was this a bridge too far? I started thinking about the connection. I put red into the signal and black into the ground. At least in electrical wiring, black is the neutral. But maybe it was the other way around, this is low voltage. Low and behold, I got signal.

End Your Programming Routine: This is finally complete, it feels good. I do regret that I have a hole in the wall with wire sticking through but I don’t know about these small radio connections. I don’t have the tools to terminate nor if any wall plates exist. It is hidden behind the couch anyway. The point remains that it is installed and complete with the results that I was looking for. Now on to the hundreds of other things I want to get done, like tidying up the basement.

July 5, 2022 – My Antenna Fetish Continues

July 5, 2022 /

In my quest to get better AM reception, I ran across this very affordable antenna setup. First, I am going to beta test this versus the traditional loop antenna (the one that came with the receiver). If all goes well, I will permanently mount this outside. If this setup doesn’t work, I have one more play, there is another antenna available from CCrane that I might try.

I actually didn’t really realize this, but the AM band is the same frequency of some shortwave bands. Signals on the AM band range from 530 – 1710 kHz. This antenna is rated for 0.5 – 30 mHz (or 500 – 30,000 kHz) so it should work beautifully. This antenna is specifically intended for shortwave reception, conveniently AM radio is in the appropriate range.

My first test was to simply assemble the antenna and connect it. I did a quick scan through the spectrum and picked up 20 or so channels. That was a positive sign.

Now that I knew it was going to work, I started researching cable extensions. This particular antenna is built with a 10m (33ish feet) of cable. I haven’t measured anything, but I am probably going to need 100 feet or more. In this case, my preference would be to build my own cable but I need the proper tools to do that. The connection is called an RJ-476 which looks like a miniature TV cable end.

Another problem that I had to solve for is my radio has two wire connector input, not an RJ-476. As you might know, with a cable there is a conductor and a ground. The conductor is the center wire but the ground comes off the shielding. Typically, the ground connection is made when you screw the connector in place. Now we are talking about solder and other things. Fortunately I found a cable that splits for appropriate use. The lesson is know how your are going to connect to your radio.

It’s going to be awhile before my priorities are going to align and I actually mount this antenna on the roof. I would hope to get it done before the end of summer. Regardless, I built a frame for the antenna because the loop is so floppy. Since AM signals are directional, the frame allows for a much easier ‘tuning’ of the antenna since it is so floppy.

My hope is that I get the antenna out of the basement and up on the roof I won’t have as much as a need for directional tuning. If that turns out to not be the case, then I have a couple stations in mind that I have not been able to get with any current antenna setup and I will be happy.

End Your Programming Routine: It must be that nobody listens to AM radio through their stereo tuner. I am speculating that the majority of AM listening must be in the car. I am rather surprised by the lack of antenna choices (or information) anywhere. Maybe there is a business opportunity here? I will be happy to eventually tune into the local university sports though.

January 10, 2022 – The AM Antenna Video Anyway

January 10, 2022 /

I was thinking that I spent a bunch of time taking video about the process and that maybe I would get some feedback on how to make it better if I posted it.  So, that is what I did.

Not having done this a ton, I am always surprised at how much work creating videos are.   Whether it is holding the phone the wrong orientation or trimming beginning and end of clips to make good transitions, this five minute video took a couple of hours to edit (and that is with very little actual editing).

I suppose that if I am going to do more of this, I should invest in a few items to produce better quality.  I need a tripod so I can get action shots as there is only so much you can do one handed.  I may need another camera for better angles as well, like a GoPro for head mountability, I don’t know.  Part of my hesitation is that is I am not terribly interested in creating a lot of video.  What I do, I want to do well.  

I was thinking about my interest in antennas and old tech and I started thinking about radios.  I think I could get into amateur radio.  I like approachable tech, science and DIY that seems tailor made.  Plus, at least traditionally these were the ‘good guys’ in disasters like Hurricane Katrina.  That seems right up my ally as well.

I don’t know yet, I need to do more research.  I certainly don’t need another expensive or gear and time intensive hobby.  I think preferably where I would start is a secondhand CB and a DIY antenna project.  

End Your Programming Routine:  I am keeping it short today.  The whole point of spending time on the video was to use it.  Since this video has been up a couple of days, I have already gotten some tips, so there may be another version in the works.  I can probably reuse many of the components making this faster yet to do.

December 17, 2021 – An Nearly Free AM Antenna

December 17, 2021 /

This one has been a long time coming. I actually planned on building this last year at this time.  In fact, I took the materials to the Boy Scout Christmas tree stand last year to work on in the down time.  I will explain my foibles below.

The only real cost to this project was the wire.  I bought an entire spool at Habitat for Humanity for $3 because one of the real ends on the spool was broken.  The reason this was a problem was because when unwinding the wire, it became a rats nest of wire.  It took me hours to unwind and straighten.   That is what stopped my progress last year.  This year it got some priority because of my basement clean-up efforts.

Before I get too far down the road, the design and plans for this go to Dave Pederson at Trans World Radio which is a 501C ministry to connect the message of Christianity throughout the world.  The reason it is cheap is so it can be built worldwide with salvage materials.  Dave claims that this can be built in thirty minutes.   I would say that it took me a couple of years (just kidding a couple of hours).

My original plan today was to build this antenna and embed the YouTube video.  Right now, I have built the antenna and the video needs to be edited and assembled.  Part of why I am dragging my feet a little bit is that I don’t see any improvement with the antenna.  So, I don’t want to post a video that is marginal or potentially useless.  Or said another way, I am spending some time testing it first.

Getting into antennas is kind of a vortex of science namely physics.  I am positive that there is a lot to know that I don’t, but I do at least understand some of the basics.  Did you know that every AM antenna is is a big coil of wire situated inside the radio?  For that reason, the quality of AM reception is always directional or how the radio is sitting. 

Building an exterior antenna without connections to the radio and in theory get better reception does it by in some ways concentrating the signal.  My goal is to ultimately connect it to my receiver without a bunch of monkeying around with the antenna each time I want to change the signal frequency.  So, I am not going to be real happy if it turns out that I need to adjust the location of this antenna frequently.

It turns out that AM radio stations turn down their ‘power’ at night.  In my quick research, it seems like the amount of environmental electromagnetic interference is reduced.  This would cause some stations to stomp on other stations because of the lack of interference, hence reducing broadcast power to keep them separate.  This plays an additional problem with reception as marginal stations usually are even worse at night.  Ironically, some stations can be found from long distances at night due to signal bounce.  I have heard stations from San Francisco and Calgary Canada at night.

Simple interference itself, is a subject that has lots of gotchas.  The best way I would describe it as a Gaussian Field (take a look at that math).  Ignoring most of the technical information, wires carrying electricity, fluorescent ballasts, LED transformers and all other powered devices emit interference in a bell shaped pattern.  Non-shielded cables (like antennas) are subject high degradation when the lights are on.  It is not a lot of fun to sit in the dark listening to the radio, especially when the benefit of radio is that ability to do things concurrently.  Grounding itself is not as simple as attaching another wire to ground as it can create a loop causing additional interference.

My CCrane radio is marketed at least as the best AM reception available in a radio.  I do admit it is pretty good, it is still subject to the electromagnetic interference from power usage.  I can get stations on that radio that I cant get anywhere else. Testing this new antenna on a lessor quality device is probably worth doing.  I did try it on the receiver loop as well without effect.  So, my tests will be ongoing before I declare this thing done.

End Your Programming Routine:  The truth is, I got better reception by splitting the signal from the dipole antenna (for FM).  That may have to do with the coax cable being outside and shielded rather than the shape of things.   There is more to come on this subject as I haven’t finished my testing yet.  There are other designs that use more expensive electrical components, or maybe the loop isn’t big enough or maybe I just don’t know how to use it?  I am not sure yet but the quest goes on.