DXing AM

[ynnedibanez]

So up till a year or so ago, I would do what I could to boost reception of FM (big rooftop antenna with a Winegard ap-8275 preamp), but I had always kinda ignored AM.
In years past, to me AM was that unused part of my radio that was there for old people to listen to.
(hmm, maybe I'm starting to get old )
But last year my dad and I would hang out at night on the weekend sometimes and listen to a lot of MSU Spartans basketball games on WJR 760 out of Detroit.
(Dad went to MSU)
It really amazed me that I could pick this station up all the way down here in East Tennessee.
So, I started reading about class A stations, skip, and all this other really interesting stuff about AM and I naturally got to thinking about a rooftop antenna for it.
So last night i finally started building (basically) this, http://www.mile204.us/PotsdamDan/RubeGoldberg/Ultimate_AM.html
Instead of 1 wrap of phone wire, I used 2 wraps of lamp cord. Both equal out to be 4 turns, but I just had to solder 1 connection together in the pipe. I did that just before gluing the last pipe connection.
I also added a center support and a threaded base for putting on a tall PVC pipe to keep it isolated from a rotor that I'm dedicating to it.
I am planning on using some microphone cable that I have on hand to hook it up.
Its shielded, so I think it should be good for keeping out interference from household wiring and such.
http://www.alliedelec.com/search/pr...NqT993EYMHYg5QSEclD-HV9qmQ6ncYvTcEaArqt8P8HAQ.
(REALLY good for actuator signal wire as well.)
I finished it really late last night, but still had to hook it up and see how well it worked.
Here in the house, with it just sitting on top of my tuner, even underneath a tin roof, there were tons of stations that came in good all across the dial.
I'm gonna spray paint it green to match my roof later on today, but anyway, attached is a pic of how it looks now.
Anyone else into DXing AM?

 

[Nov-01]

looks like something I need to try!

 

[Magic Static]

Looks interesting I hope using the braided lamp cord works as good as the solid phone wire does for you.

 

[Jason S]

Several years ago I played with some tuned loop antennas to DX AM stations. Let us know how your antenna works out for you.

 

[TRG]

Very cool! I have been AM DXing pretty much all my life. I use a CCRadio that is very sensitive on the AM band. In addition I boost week signals with a "select-a-tenna" tuned loop. Both items sit on top of a home made "Lazy Susan" that can rotate the combo for best signal. Its a great portable option that I take camping.

Keep us updated.

Anyone interested in improving AM reception should click on the following link.
http://richleebruce.com/amradio.html#home

 

[Conky]

1 5 gallon bucket, at least 60' wire and a variable capacitor (in this case made with cardboard and copper flashing. there's several homemade variable capacitor videos on youtube using stuff like party cups, envelopes and tin cans or aluminum foil)

 

[KE4EST]

I love to so the same with AM Broadcast. I get into it for awhile and listen then get busy with something else, I have way too many hobbies. Having a 1/2 Wave Dipole up for 160 Meters makes my AM work great! Well when it was up, it is down now and I haven't gotten it back up yet.

 

[Titanium]

I also enjoy spending late winter nights tuning across AM. Lately, been using the USB tuner SDR ($16) with a down-converter and approximately 250' long wire, North/South run, sloping up from 20' to 65'.

Fun to catch the long wave radio channels out of Europe as well. LW reception is much more rare now than compared to 20 years ago. Maybe they are still there and I need a better ground system?

 

[Nov-01]

thought I'd put up my 160 dipole up this week since the kids were out...but, it won't stop raining

 

[KE4EST]

Boy ain't that the truth. I don't think we are all that far apart Nov-01.

 

[fred555]

I also enjoy spending late winter nights tuning across AM. Lately, been using the USB tuner SDR ($16) with a down-converter and approximately 250' long wire, North/South run, sloping up from 20' to 65'.

Fun to catch the long wave radio channels out of Europe as well. LW reception is much more rare now than compared to 20 years ago. Maybe they are still there and I need a better ground system?

If you use windows with sdr# , have you seen this:
http://www.rtl-sdr.com/testing-keenerds-rtl-sdr-drivers/

How about the new R820T2 dongles?

 

[Titanium]

I use R820T USB dongles and the KMKeen drivers. Yes, these new drivers made a big difference for threshold signals!

Haven't purchased a R820T2 dongle yet.

 

[KE4EST]

I have a R820T2 dongle ordered, looking forward to trying it out.

 

[Radioguy41]

I have three different primary rigs for DXing. For the older tube radios I built this AM loop antenna with a variable capacitor. I have a Panasonic RF-3100 as a daily driver. I'm in eastern PA and often listen to AM740 Toronto, especially on Big Band Sunday Night. For solid state tinkering I have a Realistic DX-300 Wadley Loop receiver connected to about 100' of outdoor longwire running north to south about 12-15' off the ground.

 

[fred555]

I just noticed there is an SDR forum here. I will post my current project when I get a chance.
If there is any interest in tracking .mil aircraft in your AO, check it out.
It will tell you aircraft type, base of operation and unit info etc...

 

[Cosmo Blatz]

I have three different primary rigs for DXing. For the older tube radios I built this AM loop antenna with a variable capacitor. I have a Panasonic RF-3100 as a daily driver. I'm in eastern PA and often listen to AM740 Toronto, especially on Big Band Sunday Night. For solid state tinkering I have a Realistic DX-300 Wadley Loop receiver connected to about 100' of outdoor longwire running north to south about 12-15' off the ground.

View attachment 103496

I've got a Panasonic DR49 which is the European version of the RF-4900 (both solid state). Bought it at an Air Force Exchange years ago. Used it in the '90's on C-Band satellite in SSB mode to listen to telephone conversations between the mainland and the Hawaiian Islands. OOps! maybe I shouldn't mention that? Anyway, nice receiver, but the VFO isn't vary stable. As a kid, I hooked up a longwire antenna to a Ward's Airline 5-tube AM table radio and DX'd with that. Every radio station I wrote to sent me a QSL card of some sort. I could also on occasion, pick up the ship-to-shore transmissions from tug boats in the NYC harbor up around 1600 KHz (from Wisconsin!).

Have a Ramsey Signal Magnet Antenna but it is not in use at the moment. Used it at work because my work area was deep inside the building and I could not get any AM due to the RFI. Mounted the Signal Magnet on the roof and ran coax down 2 floors through an air duct. Great AM reception!

http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/Si...archPage=1&searchRank=salesrank&searchSize=12

 

[Cosmo Blatz]

I also enjoy spending late winter nights tuning across AM. Lately, been using the USB tuner SDR ($16) with a down-converter and approximately 250' long wire, North/South run, sloping up from 20' to 65'.

Fun to catch the long wave radio channels out of Europe as well. LW reception is much more rare now than compared to 20 years ago. Maybe they are still there and I need a better ground system?

Never heard of these USB SDR tuner dongles of which you speak.
Oh boy! Here~we~go~again! Dongle, upconverter, cables, connectors, antenna, software, beer...

 

[thecaribbeancanuck]

I just noticed there is an SDR forum here. I will post my current project when I get a chance.
If there is any interest in tracking .mil aircraft in your AO, check it out.
It will tell you aircraft type, base of operation and unit info etc...

Cool. looking forward to that.

 

[Cham]

Been trying to catch WION here on my 160m dipole antenna. I cut it a bit long so it resonates around 1790KHz but doesn't take much to tune down to 1000KHz, and the tuner can narrow down the passband to attenuate the nearby strong signals a bit. Been using my Icom 7K, has a decent receiver.

Too many strong nearby stations and one or two on the same frequency doesn't help...

 

[Blindowl1234]

Too much noise on the AM band for me to bother Dx'ing like I used to in the 70's. I've still got an old Hallicrafters S120 in the garage that was good for Dx'ing back then. WBAP is still an easy catch here and CKLW but, I never had much luck getting anything west of Iowa. On a related note when skip was right I remember watching a channel 3 from Halifax N.S. one morning....Donald Duck in french. This was the analog days back in the 70's. One Sunday many years ago before a big thunderstorm my FM dial was full of stations from Florida. They overpowered the locals for about an hour.