Great External AM Antenna - Works With All Radios!
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- Опубликовано: 12 июн 2016
- Learn how to build an antenna that will greatly improve AM radio reception! It will only cost a few dollars, or you might even have all of the materials sitting around! Materials needed: 50-100 feet of wire, wire snippers, an on/off switch (this is optional), and some scotch tape.
EDIT 2022: Funnily enough, I now have a show on the station featured in this video, 680 WISR! If you dig 60s/70s music, you can check it out and stream it at wisr680.com! The Stax O' Wax Show, Fridays after the 4:00 local news (around 4:10) eastern standard time...
I almost cried seeing you're small GE radio . My grandmother gave a similar one , but somehow I lost it in a taxi cab about 15 years ago , I had a really hard time accepting that I have lost such a precious gift from my dear grandmother .
I have used a ferrite rod with a coil on it next to a Radio to boost the signal
Here in Scotland I'll have to stick the short wire into the Earth hole on our standard 3 pin sockets in UK (no plate screw).
I would go to a home improvement center and get a 3 foot copper grounding spike. It is for grounding in the above vid where you may not be able to use the center screw
at your electrical outlet! A good tech knows all electrical circuit breaker boxes should be grounded properly in a home's electric system BTW !
Great post. Can’t see the radio very well but it looks cool!! I’m getting materials now for my 250’ SW long wire antenna. Amazingly with a 20’ random wire I’ve been able to pickup several European stations targeting the americas. Including the weird numbers station stuff. Looking for a good lightning arrestor… safety first. 😊
Good idea on the lightning arrestor. Impressive that you've been able to pick up some European stations. I've always wanted to get into shortwave but never have. The radio is a Tivoli Model II. The AM tuner on it is pretty poor, bringing in only the strongest of stations. With this antenna upgrade, it picked up a whole lot more. My dad now has it in his office in a nearby city to play CDs.
Nice video. A cold water pipe connection would be a safer alternative to the electrical outlet, I think.
You're probably right, so long as you have access to a pipe. Thanks for the idea!
If the house is wired properly then all electrical grounds are connected to the cold water pipe in the basement. There should we a ground wire running from the electrical box to the cold water pipe where it comes into the house. (I have seen this in all the houses that I have lived in).
As an AM/SW antenna i'm using my radiator , result .... signal improvement , but ....
My late Father listened to crystal sets in the 1920s and he said he attached it to water pipes. I hope that people turn the power off before messing around with outlet screws.
Whats diameter in cm pls?
I built my loop in a length of heat shrink tubeing. (10"). Then I have #20 solid wire for 4-6 turns. Then put a 5' length of RGU 58/u cable. With a pl 259 connector on one end. Then take one end and solder to the end of loop. Then the other to the shield. On the end with the pl259 male. install a barrel adaptor this allowed you to use the loop on just about any antenna. With out power. Put radio on or near loop. Your in business. Kv4li
Hi again, I made your antenna. It seems to work without connecting to the ground! But a little weaker.
F. Kharrasi the ground is for safety as well.
Im working with tesla coil which is oscillating at 300khz but i received too much noise with less sound quality but i do hope this will work out
Another variation on the copper wire coil and lead antenna. An important step many miss when making any of the variations on this concept is the importance of grounding the lead. No ground, poor reception. Just touching the lead will make that fact known. Nice design, seems to work very well. I'm thinking this is a tube radio? Very nice -
You are most certainly right about the ground - very important indeed! The radio is solid state, a Tivoli Model II. It's pretty new; they just went out of production a few years ago. I would not recommend them for AM radio reception; they are actually among the worst AM radios I've ever used. They do get pretty decent FM, though there is a lot of drift, so stations don't stay tuned very well. I do have a few tube radios, one of which I just finished a re-cap job on. It will be featured in an upcoming video...
I have the same transistor radio in my bathroom I listen to it everyday when I take a shower
I've two of them. Very decent little unit!
Can you use a single wire ? Does the speaker wire need to connect together on the outdoor side?
Where does the second wire for the on off switch come from and go to? In the video it comes out of no where after you attach the first wire.
You connect the outdoor part/loop of wire into the switch. The other connection is the ground wire that goes into the screw of the electric socket.
One wire goes to the coil and the other wire gets connected to the screw of an electrical socket (carefully).
use a bare water pipe, like for the toilet or a sink, for the ground connection, if you are not comfortable doing what he shows you in the video. Or get a electrical friend to do it.
Q U E S T I O N --- Please clarify! Regarding the loop antennas for AM - ads on Amazon: Our AM radios have electrical cord, adapter, 4-D battery optional connectors. No jack for external antenna. So how and where must we connect the loop antenna to help diminish the crackling on AM 1150? (FM stations = no problem). Are copper wires the best material for AM/FM antennas? Thanks.
You need a loop antenna that will couple with the radio instead of connecting directly to it. I've used the "Tecsun AN-200" and have had great luck with it. I plan to feature this loop antenna in a future video, actually. It's pretty impressive how much it boosts the signal!
Hopefully that helps!
where can on get a variable capacitor.. I have tried envelope with aluminum foil in them and slid them in and out.
Amazon has them
When he said Fith Dimension was coming I was thinking Twilght Zone or black box communication 👻 not the group.
I have an am fm preamp/amp/receiver....... Will these coils help. Just make them larger I assume?
You could, I suppose, make the coiled part larger if it won't fit around the receiver. Be sure to experiment with exactly where you place the coil, as its location in relation to the antenna inside your tuner can make a big difference. You can also often plug an AM antenna into a receiver; if so, then use two wires, one to go out to a tree, and another to go to the screw on an outlet, and connect the two wires to their respective places on the back of the receiver (usually two screws). This would probably work even better than the coil design.
Should keep in mind that not all duplex fixtures are grounded when installed, they should be but in the real world many aren't.
Yes, that's a great point!
Nice work! Have you tried using a variable capacitor with this antenna? Will it be of any use in this case?
Thank you! I have not tried using a variable capacitor with this antenna. Unfortunately, I'm not sure whether or not something like that would help.
no tuning antenna?
Great!
Sir, will you help me to reduce my AM Radio frequency from KHZ to below 150Hz .plz guide me
I'm not sure exactly how/if a modern AM radio is even capable of doing that...
I don’t think AM receivers sold in the USA pick up frequencies that low. American AM band only goes down to about 530. You’ll probably have to buy a receiver made for a part of the world where AM (aka MW or “medium wave”) is used.
Question ! Outside of my house is a old land-line telephone wire that extends 140 feet to the pole. If I can determine that this is NOT hooked up at the pole end, would this work as an antenna ?
While I'd imagine it would work, I wouldn't recommend it because a utility worker, etc. could hook it up at some point in the future. Additionally, it would likely pick up lots of interference from the electrical wiring that likely shares that utility pole. You'd be better off running your own wire out to something that isn't a utility pole (a tree, etc.)
@@mikestech1119 Thank you. I had my suspicions, and you confirm them to be right.
500 foot of wire is what I used ....incredible difference
This may help. The AM signal is broadcast on the Amplified Frequency part of the Wave. Hence, AM. That means that the audio from the transmitter is being shot into the air on electrified radio waves, to be caught on your antenna and transmitted into your processor and then sent to your speaker. Its electricity that carries your audio to your radio. Think about it the next time an electrical storm comes rolling into your area. You are listening to an am station that is popping and cracking. The station is south of you, you tune into a station that is north of you and you get a good clear signal. The storm is south of you. The lightening jacks up the signal that is carried on electricity.
Now, where does electricity want to go? To ground, literally, mother earth. You have signal you want to capture in your radio and it is being carried on electrified wave in the air. …. Grab them and send them to earth!!! but before they get to earth (ground), send them a round and around your radio's antenna. Savvy?.
Oh, and by the way, if you have a strong influence of RF (radio frequency) like a fluorescent light or whatever, you can send those little nasty RF waves to ground before they hit your radio. May not be pretty, but you can set up an "antenna" to grab them and send them to earth before they pollute your signal. Just some hardware cloth and a wire from that to ground. I've never tried it, but in theory it would work. electricity wants earth. stand between it and earth and you will feel the need of it.
Amplitude Modulation/Frequency Modulation
"... electrified radio waves" ....... don't you mean electromagnetic radiation ? Not electricity. Your explanation is complete garbage. And it is called lightning, not lightening.
MIKES TECH, can you post a step by step guide on Microwave heaters? They're suppose to be 50% cheaper up front to buy/install and 60% more efficient than HVAC heaters/Gas Heat and use 50% less energy, MIKEY TECHIE!
Hello, when I long wire antenna, I plug the earth connection; radio noise sharply. What do you think is wrong with it?
Most likely, there is a source of interference on the same circuit as the outlet that you are using for your ground (earth connection). There are a wide variety of everyday household objects that can cause interference with AM radio. Among other things, some of the most common offenders include wall wart plugs, fluorescent lights, as well as rheostats (dimmer switches). Try and figure out what else is plugged into that circuit, and then unplug them one at a time to try to isolate the problem. Hopefully that will resolve your noise issue!
Thanks so much; Is there a separate earth connection, can solve the problem?
Thanks so much; Is there a separate earth connection, can solve the problem?
I suppose that instead of connecting the wire to the plug socket, you could drop it out of a window and attach it to a metal stake that is pounded into the ground. I have not tried this, so I'm not certain that it will work, but it might solve your problem!
@@mikestech1119 Some folks seem to have homes with improperly grounded outlets so that is most likely a good possibility here!
wILL IT WORK IF I CONNECT IT TO A METAL ROOF AS A ANTENNA
Few questions:
1) Can you use wire from a stripped CAT 5 cord?
2) Does this work for FM?
3) Where else can you safely ground the antenna?
I'm not sure whether that would work or not. However, you'd need quite a bit of that cable, so unless you already have a lot of it, I'd recommend just sticking with regular speaker wire. Now, if you cut it apart into each individual wire and connected them end to end, that might work, though there might also be quite a bit of resistance unless you soldered them together. Whatever the case, if you do decide to try it, let me know what you find out, as I'm curious...
As far as FM usage, I'm not really sure, as I don't listen to much FM. It probably wouldn't help all that much, as it is really not the proper shape for an FM antenna.
You could, I'd assume, simply just put both ends of the ground into the literal ground, or ground off of a cold water pipe.
Hopefully that helps!
neat wow factor. so it's just fine that wire has insulation?
So far as I know, the insulation has very little effect on the signal. If it does, then it is extremely minimal. At any rate, the insulated wire works well enough for me!
Yes, radio waves easily penetrate non-metallic insulation. In fact, when you run a bare antenna wire - the attachment points at the ends must be insulated so that the radio signal does not go directly to ground. If you have ever seen TV antenna wires coming down from a roof top antenna, you would notice that the wires are insulated to protect the signal from being grounded.
You wrapped the ground wire around the screw backwards
Good catch! I didn't know better then, but I do now!
ATTENTION, MIKE ! Thanks for the video, of course. However, please clarify A Q U E S T I O N --- Please clarify! Regarding the loop antennas for AM - ads on Amazon: Our AM radios have electrical cord, adapter, 4-D battery optional connectors. No jack for external antenna. So how and where must we connect the loop antenna to help diminish the crackling on AM 1150? (FM stations = no problem). Are copper wires the best material for AM/FM antennas? Thanks.
With a loop antenna like the one featured in my video, you don't attach it to the radio at all. It basically strengthens the signal inside the loop so that the existing antenna in your radio can pick it up better. That's one of the wonderful things about this antenna design! No radio modification is necessary, even for a set that doesn't have an input jack.
you can use cable ties
It's wotks. Its simple and changed my terrible signal into a clear signal.
Thanks for the upload!
You're welcome! I'm glad I was able to help!
3:10 Holy careless whiskers batman!
A red ring crimp terminal would work much better and be a lesser risk of a shock hazard.
वाह! 😊👌❤
I was just about to say the same thing
There is no such thing as,. "standard gauge speaker wire." You need to provide specific details, such as the "a solid-core 22 Gauge copper wire.
"Speaker wire" varies from 6 Gauge to 20 Gauge.
I don't think the gauge of wire is essential here. The biggest concern would likely be making sure the wire can handle its own weight. I just used whatever spool I had sitting around for this project.
Comment: avoid video'ing against unblinded exterior windows.
I tried this in my house with no success
Interesting! If you've got sources of interference nearby (such as a computer, cell phone, fluorescent light, dimmer switch, flatscreen TV, etc.) that could be causing interference with your radio. There's also a chance that your outlets are not properly grounded, which in turn would mean that your antenna is not properly grounded. That would yield rather poor results. Those are just a few possible problems I can think of off of the top of my head. I'd be more than happy to help you troubleshoot if you'd like!
Mike's Tech, thanks for the response, I'll try it outside and see what happens.
You could also get a three foot copper rod at any home improvement center. You should have one outside you house and tied into the electrical service drop
from the power pole to the circuit breaker box itself!. It serves as ground for the electricity in your home! You can use a second one it for ground by itself
for this circuit anyhow.
Did you have some 5-year old kid do your video?
@ThunderBroomPillock - Oh dear, what traumatic event in early life caused you to be so bitter?
☹
Bad. Engañoso,!