This page has my original tips for AM radio reception. After the tips are links to pages about improving AM reception in your home and on a separate page there are links for better AM reception in your car. In both cases you get more than a list of links, I have provided commentary which brings together and organizes the web pages. I also have a page on hints and links for better FM radio reception.
Finally, and best of all, I have collected tips from many other web pages and added my own tips to form what is probably the most complete one web page collection of AM radio reception tips on the Internet.
This web site may have the most hints on AM reception on the Internet. It was #1 for AM radio reception on Google for many years, it is still near the top, and was used as a source for a Cleveland Plain Dealer article that was syndicated to other papers.
This page was written to help Catholics listen to low power Catholic AM stations, but physics is physics, so they will work for anyone. Because I am not a radio hobbyist and I am simply interested in communication the tips are simple, practical, and inexpensive
But occasionally an interference source causes difficulties over a larger area. For example, the people who lived down stairs from me at my former apartment had a TV that produced a loud buzz even though the TV was a good 20 feet away from the radio. But the much larger TV in our apartment which was five to ten feet away was no problem. So usually the normal interference sources are a minor difficulty, but occasionally one of them is a major difficulty. You should treat the common lists of interference sources as a list of suspects, not a list of convicted criminals.
This is perhaps a more original tip, if the interference source is lower or higher than your radio you may have to prop up the radio to point either end of the internal antenna at the interference source. For example, if the interference is upstairs or downstairs you may need to prop one end of the radio on a book and adjust it so that one end of internal antenna is aimed at the interference source. This is particularly useful in apartments where your neighbors may not want to be bothered with improving your AM reception. This helped me with a TV my downstairs neighbor had.
I was not able to tell much difference between the CCRadio from Crane which costs about 150 dollars and the GE Superadio III which costs about 50 dollars. But perhaps there is a difference I did not notice. The CCRadio is digitally tuned which could save you quite a bit of time over the years if you switch stations a lot. A note in my guest book says that the earlier versions of the GE Superadio were the best, and beat the early CCRadio. I have included links to three web pages that provide comparisons between the
If you listen to much AM on one or more hard to get stations it may well be worth it to pay an extra hundred dollars for even a small difference. The average American listens to more than a 1,000 hours of radio each year. So if you are an dedicated listener you could easily listen to 10,000 hours or more over the next decade, in which case the extra cost is less than a penny per hour.
There is another comparison that I have not made and I can not find on the Internet, yet this would be a very important comparison. Which is better the 50 dollar GE Superadio combined with the 100 dollar C Crain Twin Coil Ferrite Antenna or the one hundred and fifty dollar CCRadio alone. The combination of the GE Superadio and the C Crain Twin Coil Ferrite Antenna cost about the same as the CCRadio alone. Several reviews of the C Crain Twin Coil Ferrite Antenna say that it can greatly improve the reception on good radios like the CCRadio and the GE Superadio so it is likely that the Superadio Twin Coil Ferrite Antenna combination should win. If you know anything please leave a note in the guest book.
Another option to consider is a short wave radio. A CCRadio costs about as much as a high quality short wave radio and a high quality short wave radio might might bring in AM almost as well as the CCRadio. More on this below.
Let me note on the proper spelling of these products. This will not only give you the correct spelling, but if someone enters the wrong spelling into a search engine they can still find the page. The GE Superadio is spelled superadio, not superradio, or super radio. The CCRadio is not spelled CC Radio or C.C. Radio.
The GE Superadio was originally made by General Electric but has been made by Thompson Electronics for many years. GE does not produce many or perhaps any of home communications products that carry its brand, but I have found that much of what GE puts it's brand on is exceptional.
1. The best bet for fifty dollars is the GE Superadio.
According to a note in my guest book the C Crane Twin Coil Ferrite Antenna is a "great concept" but produced ";minimal improvement for AM reception." More recently another note from the guest book also said they got very little improvement with this antenna.
Many weak AM stations are allowed by the FCC a much stronger signal during the day, but are required to cut their power at night. After sundown you may lose the AM signal but it has commonly believed that short-wave radio works better at night. Thus you might want to switch from AM to short-wave if there is something interesting on short-wave.
If you do get a short-wave radio it may have to be a new one, because some stations broadcast on parts of the short-wave spectrum that were not used many years ago.
As a great short wave radio can be had for under 200 dollars you should think carefully before spending that kind of money or more on an AM radio.
The more expensive AM equipment is popular in places like Alaska where relatively isolated people have great difficulty picking up local news.
Internet radio has largely made shortwave a bit obsolete, Catholic radio in America is no longer on shortwave. So this tip may be increasingly obsolete unless you are someplace you can not get the Internet.
There is another option, Sirius Satellite Radio has a couple of Catholic Channels. Once again one should look at this before spending hundreds on a very high end AM radio. An advantage of Sirius Satellite Radio is that you can hear it in the car, where you might not get the Internet, or might not get the Internet without rapidly burning through your data allotment. EWTN is available on Sirius Satellite, but is also available on the Internet.
It also might be mentioned that DirectTV & Dish Network now carry EWTN in English. This is a television service not radio so I will leave it at that.
You maybe able to listen to some short-wave stations and even distant AM and FM stations on the Internet to test your interest. If you have broadband you may simply want to listen to the station this way and skip the equipment, but if you have a dial up modem you will probably not want to tie up your phone line for hours at a time on a regular basis just to save a couple of hundred dollars on the radio equipment that could bring the station in. But even listening on the dial up modem is a good way to try the station before you buy the equipment.
Most libraries have public access to the Internet and you maybe able to listen to the station that interests you while surfing the Internet at the library. Once again this is a good way to try before you buy but it makes sense to buy the equipment rather than going to the library and waiting for a computer.
If your normal travel by car brings you closer to a station that carries EWTN or any other channel that interest you this provides another opportunity to try before you buy. For example, Sacramento and several other Central Valley cities had Catholic radio stations before San Francisco was added, so a Catholic living in the Bay Area who was driving through the valley might want to check out Catholic radio before buying expensive radio equipment.
You can check the
You might also be able to test your interest during the day on a weekend. As mentioned above the AM signal is often ten times as strong before sundown. If you work most of those hours that might not help during the week. But you might well get the station during the day on the weekend which will allow you to test your interest.
This idea of trying before you buy must be a preoccupation of mine. I sent a letter to the editor of the New York Times suggesting that online bookstores put an excerpt, the table of contents, and the index on their web sites so you could try the book before you buy. Some on the online bookstores were already putting few excerpts before the Times published my letter, but nobody to the best of my knowledge was putting the table of contents and the index online A few months later Amazon.com put up the "Look Inside" system for many of their books. The "Look Inside" system does everything my letter suggested, three different things I suggested were done, coincidence, maybe, maybe not. But back to AM radio.
If you are having difficulty finding the station in the first place you can take the radio to a place where the station comes in strong, for example, outside, or next to a window. Then carefully mark the place on the dial. Then move the radio back to where you want to use it.
It is also useful to note the stations with clear signals that are close to the weak station you are after. Strong stations, particularly those with distinctive programming, are helpful if you want to explain where the station is to someone else. You can also help a friend find the radio station by holding the phone next to radio so they can hear the weak channel as they try to tune it in. I find this helps them a lot. Helping people in your parish find Catholic stations is a powerful way to build up the faith and encourage Catholic radio.
This last suggestion, and perhaps some of the others may seem a bit trivial, one can see why a book or magazine article might not include them, but space is free on the Internet so I have attempted to include things that might normally be left out so you could try "any trick in the book" to quote Donovan's song "Sunshine Superman."
But with a good radio like the GE Superadio it is difficult to find any difference. Many web sites will tell you that the antenna is more important than the radio, but good radios often have good antennas built in. The GE Superadio has a large ferrite antenna built into the back. My landlord ordered a Select-A-Tenna to use with his CCRadios from C. Crane Company. He found it did not help and sent it back. Once again the point is that the CCRadio is a great AM radio and even a great antenna like the Select-A-Tenna may not make much difference. On the other hand a Select-A-Tenna used with skill may make a difference under certain circumstances even with a great radio and might be worth the sixty dollars to the real fan.
This is the opposite of how you use the regular AM antenna in the back of your radio. The antenna in the back of the radio should be placed so it is perpendicular to the signal. Think of it like a sail that is catching the radio waves. If the signal comes from the north then the ends of the radio should point East and West, and the back of the radio should face North or South.
A web page on loop antennas said the loop must be perpendicular to the internal antenna. I have tested this and found that what is relevant is the orientation of the loop antenna to the broadcast tower not the radio. This will mean that the loop is perpendicular to the internal antenna, but that is because both the internal antenna and the loop antenna are properly oriented toward the broadcast tower.
If the loop is not wired to the radio it will have to be close to the radio. If the loop antenna and the radio form a T, with the front or back of the radio facing the tower you will get an optimal signal, unless there is a source of interference.
You can help Catholic radio by spreading information on these and the other tips you will find at various web sites to your fellow parishioners. I demonstrated tips and equipment for the Legion of Mary and my prayer group. If the pastor does not object you might run demonstrations on Sunday morning in front of the church or put some key tips in the Church bulletin
Here is a web page on Catholic radio stations nation wide,EWTN affiliated stations
In this web page I have been discussing AM radio, which is the American term, internationally the term middle wave is used. The tips are also useful for long wave radio.
I have written a summary of the tips from this page and many other pages. It maybe the most extensive collection of AM radio reception ideas on the web, though some of the other pages go into more depth on certain topics.
The Pilot of the Airwaves has been a radio hobbyist for many years, and used to work for his college radio station. His page gives the standard advice, which is very important, but also has many other points based on his considerable experience. The pilot's page, like the one you are reading, was on Geocities.com. Now it is on the Internet Archive. The Australian Broadcast Corporation, ABC, has put up several good pages on AM radio reception. These pages may not cover all the standard material, but they have material the others do not. One of the ABC pages is on troubleshooting at home.
Here is another good place to check, because it has a couple of thoughts that other web pages do not, but it is rather short and does not have much of the material that other sites do have. One of his points was that if you have a two pronged plug in which both prongs are the same you might want to try turning the plug over so the prongs go into the opposite slots. He also suggests moving to another plug to eliminate interference that is coming through the plugs. eHow has lots of good practical ideas on many topics. You have to register to get all their advice. Here is a careful comparison of the two strongly recommended AM radios, the GE Superadio and the CCRadio from Crane. It is written by Bob Grove. The web page is on the Grove Enterprises web site, so Bob Grove probably owns the company or is part of a family that does. This article is part of Monitoring Times. The article is fairly long.
A popular page on talk radio in Philadelphia that has some material comparing the GE Superadio and Crane's CCRadio.Original tips for better AM radio reception
2. The best bet for one hundred and fifty dollars is the combination of a GE Superadio and a C Crain Twin Coil Ferrite Antenna.
Perhaps you disagree, feel free to express yourself in my guestbook.AM reception links for your home
Three web sites comparing the GE Superadio with the CCRadio
The C Crain Twin Coil Ferrite Antenna
This is a sophisticated page on AM interference problems. The writer explains what the different sources of interference sound like. This could help you narrow down the suspects as you search for the source of the noise. An advanced page for the person who wants to know all the tricks, but filled with material you will not find on any of the other pages.
Another intelligent page on interference. It suggests that many of our interference problems are the fault of the radio or television set.
This web page has a very long list of AM links, many of them intended for AM hobbyists. The page even links to this one, so he must have good taste, right?
Finally let me mention that you might find material on AM reception by searching for the interational term medium wave radio, more rarely called mediumwave and very rarely middle wave. Conversely if you are searching for information on medium wave you should use advice for AM radio which is the same thing. Long wave radio uses the same techniques as AM radio even though it is on a different part of the radio spectrum.
Here once again is the link to EWTN affiliated stations
This web site has been honored by a links from several Catholic radio networks
If you are a Catholic webmaster this website has received a green, the top rating for fidelity to the Catholic faith from Catholic Culture. So Catholics can use this web site with confidence. You can also use Catholic Culture to look for Catholic sites that have been checked for fidelity.
Have you got any thoughts on improving AM radio reception? Perhaps you know of an important web site that I missed. Why not write about them in my guest book I may include your thoughts in this page, which used to get more than 30 thousand hits a year when it was on Geocities, and perhaps it will achieve that again. Furthermore the Cleveland Plain Dealer published an article largely based on this site, so who knows how far your thoughts will go if you put them in the guest book. Only I can read the comment log but I will feel free to quote you with out revealing your identity, unless you ask me to include your name.
This page is proudly text only because I value your time. I like to think that my site is information rich and graphics free.
Page last updated June 20, 2012
Perhaps the biggest collection of tips for middle wave or AM Radio reception
Links for AM reception in cars, trucks, autos
A page of links and tips on FM radio reception tips
Answers to questions on AM radio reception
Tips for improving UHF TV reception