GE Super Radio and AM Interference: A Surprising Discovery
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- Опубликовано: 14 май 2024
- Is the GE Super Radio: The Ultimate Emergency Radio?
I share an intriguing discovery I made while investigating unexpected AM radio interference. Join me on my journey as I identify and trace the source of this mysterious disturbance.
In the stillness of the night as the rest of the world was asleep, the AM radio could transport you to distant lands.
There was something magical about listening to those distant AM stations while driving through the night. It was as if I was tapping into a hidden world, one that only revealed itself when most of the world was fast asleep. The crackling static and faint voices created a sense of mystery and adventure.
Despite the poor reception and occasional interference, those AM radio stations became my lifeline during long, solitary drives. They kept me company when the road seemed endless and the night felt never-ending. And as I drove on into the darkness, I couldn't help but feel a sense of nostalgia for a simpler time when the world felt a little bit bigger, and the possibilities seemed endless.
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Here's to those of us that fell in love with the ionosphere as children . 👍
XERB with Wolfman Jack
XTRA "AM Stereo six nine O" I don't know if it was C-Quam or what.
Those were two that I remember listening to as a kid at night when others were out getting high.
Which was the early 70's in my case.
Yes, I remember there was lots of interesting stuff to be heard on SW/MW/LW in the '70s. I'll bet it comes back to some extent if today's infrastructure becomes unreliable for information. Good to have the long reach capability just in case.
@@InsideOfMyOwnMind A bunch of us listened to da Wuffman in the mid and late 60s, a funny guy. As far as AM stereo, the distortion could be annoying, didn't care for it.
Absolutely Mate ⚡🙏⚡
I'm still Hooked
as an Old Bugger haha.
I found a Superadio I and III at Goodwill. I had heard how good they were, but I was blown away. I was getting 1 and 5Kw AM stations 2-3 states away!
That is awesome!
@@Barry-Watson I found them in the same store 2 years apart.
Working a career on the road in vehicles that only had a two-way radio where the AM/FM would be, I always carried a pocket transistor radio and later a Grundig multi-band to catch the news. This was before smartphones. I carried the pocket radio in my gear even after smartphones, and it saved my bacon when I was totally off the grid in Nevada for a week. I was the only one of us who was waking up to the news on the AM radio station back home, a few mountain ranges away. I don't think many folks realize that even on car radios you can pick up AM stations hundreds of miles away, especially at night and away from civilization.
Our home is a disaster when it comes to noise floor. It always was S9+ After battling it for a while, I eventually moved my ham radio station to an outbuilding a considerable distance away and decided to power everything I could with DC. My noise floor on a bad day is now S1-2.
One of the biggest noise generators were wall-wart power supplies with the second being a baby monitor which included a camera.
Replying to @bobc.7958:
You moved your radio shack 200 miles from your house.
I’m happy that I got my grandma’s Super Radio 3 when she passed away, perfect for listening to the Royals in Tulsa.
I miss Art Bell on the AM band while driving to and from work at night.
Art was definitely one of a kind.
Agree 100%. Unique
Mels Hole
Art's parts
I worked 2nd shift for many years and listened to Art Bell every night on my way home.
Miss those days...
What amazes me how many MW stations there are. Some people say that MW would be dying. But here in a radio-quiet environment, the band is completely full. Channel after channel, in many cases even two channels on a frequency.
I managed to make it to 70+ years on this planet. Radio sure has changed a lot. Love the GE Superadio
I grew up with a Super Radio II and currently have a III. Amazing AM reception on this entire line. Some of the best I've ever experienced.
The GE Superradio had a better quality AM signal chain than other radios. Broadcast engineers liked these. Now when you jacked it into a sound system with better amps and speakers shows how good AM can be. It had a conventional power supply instead of a switcher. For DXing use the batteries instead of the AC cord. You get noise from the power line. I used have all versions of these radios. They were destroyed in a house fire. Lost it all. I also had a Grundig/Eaton Sattelite AM,FM , and SW. I work in a gov’t SW facility in Greenville,NC. The Grundig had an excellent AM section like the Superradios. Those digital switcher power supplies are killing AM and even SW to some extent,. The “wall wart” plug supplies are common noise generators. As you show both LED and CFL lamps guilty-they have switchers in their bases. All of those devices can act like “spark transmitters”!
I've been blaming the basic limitations of the AM service for the "bad audio" for years and I am a a broadcast engineer with many years of working with AM transmitters. I have found that much of the distortion and annoying sound is actually the fault of the receivers! I recently bought a Dodge Minivan and have a client that is simulcasting the AM and low power FM with the same programming, a mixture of talk and music. The AM feed is missing the stereo but it is very low distortion and is not fatiguing like my previous radios! Having the direct comparison caused me to listen to other AM stations and they sound good and clear also. WSM with the Grand Old Opera at night is quite enjoyable for long periods of time! AM is generally transmitted in pretty high fidelity but few people are able to take advantage of that! Now if only the programming was better!
I agree. I still have pre war radio which was designed with special care for quality of transmission. It was real gem I struggled for many yeras to bring to it's perfect tuning/sounding and it proves now exactly as intended .
I must say that even with today modulation 9kHz it makes me more joy than FM/CD played with stereo tube and unusually good speakers.This radio has four IF bands of selectivity - 7,9,11,and 14 kHz and usualy is switched to 14 kHz I suspect that in AM circuitry in IF are created any better phase correlations which make presentation more live and emotional than FM/CD . If AM program would be transmitted by station in my country (actualy I must listen to distant TR from like 1000miles only at night ) and (that is no possible now) with 14 kHz modulation it would beat FM with dynamic of sound .
In ‘72 I was a CB geek, with 4.5 watts, sitting on too of the rockies, about 9000’. On good nights I could talk clearly to Florida from north Utah, working from 12v battery power and a105” whip on a jeep.
You have a great radio voice, sir!
Heh, glad you think so! Thanks.
I grew up with a Zenith Trans-Oceanic and did my homework listening to WLS and WCFL in Chicago 400 miles away every night.
Don't forget touch lamps. Drove me crazy until i discovered it.
Ran across your video about building a pirate radio station when you were young. LOVED the story and can't wait to watch this video. You tell a great story with very interesting facts. I have subscribed and keep up the great videos !!!
Same Here mate,
this is my 2nd Vid & I also Subscribed.
Switch-mode power supplies are usually cheaply designed, are made in China, and they don't care how much RFI they generate. My job was to repair them (if possible) and they are very efficient, but I noticed they rarely have any, or very little RFI suppression built within them. Some are accompanied by a toroid core that you can run the DC output cord around for some suppression, but most don't have this option. Our AC power here is loaded with RFI trash and picking up certain AM stations clearly even during the day is impossible using an AC powered radio. Using a battery powered radio is better, but the power line radiates RFI all over the neighborhood. I called the power company and they came out and said there was nothing they could do about it. Anyway, I have a GE Superadio III and I absolutely LOVE it, and since it wasn't mentioned, the "wide-band" switch makes AM audio sound close to FM quality, but seems to be only available on version III. -Kevin K. AI4HZ
Nothing as cool as driving across Texas on Friday Night and listening to the high school football games broadcast by little stations in the several little towns.
I still listen to a local AM classic rock station every day!
even listening in rural areas - the AM band is now plagued by electric fence noise...tick....tick....tick
I had a similar experience to you. I live in Melbourne Australia, we use 50 Hz AC here. Late in 2022 I was listening to my little pocket radio while having my tea, and I could hear a lot of electrical humming, my bathroom radio, a Sony, was also picking up similar noise. I decided to investigate. First I turned off my circuit breakers until the noise went away, when it did, I turned on the breaker which caused the noise to come back. It did not take me very long to find the source of the noise, a USB AC Adaptor was powering my Super Nintendo Classic, which was connected to my TV via HDMI, pulling out the AC Adaptor solved the problem, I have subsequently found another AC Adaptor which generates less noise. What's really curious is that this buzzing noise I heard wasn't audible if I unplugged the Super NES Classic from the TV and just had it plugged into the AC Adaptor only, must be some kind of earth related issue, I don't really know.
Thanks for sharing. Yeah, sometimes collections of equipment find interesting ground paths, and they interact in unexpected ways.
Just recently discovered your channel and have been enjoying all your videos. I will definitely be testing all my CFL bulbs in the house -- that is really surprising.
Thank you!
I recently resurrected an Eddystone ship cabin valve radio from the early 60s that introduced me to Shortwave back in the early 80s. I recall there was lots to be heard on it. It was sad to hear how few stations there were left to be heard. In the intervening years I have used SDR radios and a loop antenna to reduce the effect interference.
We recently had a power cut and I took the opportunity to check out the bands with an SDR. The noise floor dropped by about 40dB and the reception was wonderful. I’d already turned off all power to the house in the past with a small change in noise so it would appear external sources are in play, possibly VDSL broadband. I had to get rid of power line Ethernet adaptors - they created terrible interference!
AM is still very busy at night in the UK but I miss the unusual content that aired back in the day. Happy memories of Radio Luxembourg and Talk Radio in the early hours!
Nice. Would have loved to have heard European broadcasts back in those days. I've never had great luck with the SDR, because it mine would pick up too much noise from the computer that it was attached to. Apparently you've got that figured out. Thanks for the comment.
@@Barry-Watson Sorry to hear your SDR experience was not good. I mainly use an Airspy HF+ Discovery connected to a Wellbrook loop antenna but an official YouLoop antenna on the HF+ should behave well. Of course, some computers are quite a source of interference in their own right…
I wonder if anyone is recording huge swathes of the AM/SW bands to preserve for future generations. Imagine having access to a virtual online radio that lets you tune to a date and time in the past.
Yep.....and Radio Caroline. Even more pirate than Luxembourg.
@@graemedavidson499There is such a thing as an Internet radio site that lets you tune by years. It's been a long time since I was on it that I can't remember the details. Hopefully, it's still out there.
Just came across your video. I also really enjoy older radios as well.Nothing like some old school late night radio programs.
Great video! When you mentioned Art Bell I thought of C. Crane right off the bat and you mentioned them as well. Classic!
c crane let A.M. fans down when he put a D.SP. chip in the analog A.M. radio and changed the way it tunes.(E P. Pro).
When I was in school I listened to WLS in Chicago almost every night. I had an old GE 6 transistor radio built in the 50's that I used every night before I went to sleep. FM radio didn't really have much decent content in those days and AM was going strong with variety.
As for the interference from the LED bulbs, I have seen the same issue with some of them.
Again, GREAT vid! Bravo!
Hey, thanks!
Thank you fpr the information about noise and the GE radio. I never knew about them but now I have to own one.
Barry, what you were saying about staying connected during storms reminded me that AM radio will even give you warning that a cell is getting closer by picking up the lightning while you get your news. You can really tell if it's getting closer or farther. Good stuff if you can't get radar on the internet at the time.
Excellent point. When I was a kid I would tune to am static, where there is no station, and put a meter on the radio to "measure" how far away the thunderstorms were by the lightning strike static.
Great review of a classic quality radio. The RFI problem and how you resolved that is good info for anyone plagued by interference! I have a switch mode car battery charger much like one you reviewed a few months back, when used it would totally wipe out the radio and tv in my garage. I opened it up to find the circuit board had several empty locations for components related to noise suppression. Not designed that way but built that way to save a few pennies! - Thanks for the interesting review 👍
Much appreciated!
One of the main sources of RF interference in our home is from the video surveillance system that uses digital video cameras with Cat 5 cables. I have to turn it off to use the SDR receiver.
Glad I found your channel. Thanks.
Welcome!
@@Barry-Watson did you become a Ham as well?
Thanks! No, never got a Ham radio license. I found radio equipment and technology interesting. But learning Morse code, or talking with random people on the air, was not a big interest of mine.
Spot on Brother.
The cheap LED drivers for these lights
can be mayhem for Lower bands.
I have managed to eliminate that interference using an elaborate large outdoor antenna with a very heavily choked coaxial cable.
I use really skinny teflon dielectric coax
wound with as many turns as possible on a larger Mix 31 torroid near the antenna as the RF choke which then connects to a low loss foam dielectric coax
which prevents the coax shield from becoming part of the antenna.
For the purpose of your example though,
I agree that people need to check all these RF dirty gadgets in thier homes.
I had many LED drivers for my ceiling lights that were a nightmare for HF and MF
along with things like chordless drill battery chargers etc.
Keep up the Great Work Fella
& 73 from Downunder ⚡🙏⚡
Hey...well...what a nice, calm, useful and at the same time nostalgic video. I'm 60 now and listen to AM every day. Where I live is in the middle of the very busy Netherlands / Europe with a lot of sources of interference around me. But let's be honest: that has always been the case! Fluorescent beams, TV tubes, cars from before 1980. Everything crackles or buzzes on Am and that's half the fun. It goes without saying that everything digital should stay away from AM. period. Keep it up !
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!
Art Bell was the best. Hard to believe he's been gone over 6 years, already.
Back in the mid 70's, I remember being annoyed by RFI from blinking Christmas tree bulbs. Being the Scrooge that I was, I'd unplug the tree while listening. I also remember an electric carving knife being a bad offender. And then there were those fluorescent lights...
AM is still alive and doing well. I listen to it often, even when I could be listening to Sirius/XM. And I also listen to Coast to Coast AM on it when yet again, I could be listening to that on Sirius/XM on the Road Dog trucking channel!!! Something about the extra noise, thunderstorm crackle, and fading on AM that is great. To heck with the perfect sound on Sirius/XM!! Although I do switch to that as I drive too far away from my AM station. My favorite AM station is KNRS, Salt Lake City and they put on Coast to Coast AM every night.
Thanks for sharing!
I have a SDRPLAY and it is a Super Radio! The AM MW band is full but it helps when you use a 132 foot wire as an antenna. Art Bell was da man!!
Thanks for the info!
I recently got back into the hobby after a decades-long absence with an SDRPlay RSPDx. A lot as sure changed both for good and bad.
Thank you Barry for the perfect description of the wonderful world of AM night time long distance radio reception. Nothing beat the sound of the wavering fading in and out distant radio stations. It was like magic, never knowing what or where you would be transported into. I took an old tube radio someone had thrown away , it was just a bake lite model about 5 tubes (1950s-60s) and would listen while I did my homework. I kept a log of call letters and cities, position on the dial and time of night I herd it. It was always fun to add a new station to the list and look up on the map where they were. The small wattage small town stations were the coolest to find, they would even have local call in for sale items, and people would leave their phone number to get a hold of for say a car, tractor or canning jars. I got to the point that if a city was mentioned in the news I could recall their local radio stations from my memory. I found the winter was the best for pulling in eastern stations, and it still is . Ever herd of CKBI am 900 Prince Albert Sask Canada, well it is till there as are hundreds of other radio oasis's to be found in the ever changing sea of AM skip.
Grew up with a crystal radio,cost $1.00.Than short wave,cb,then amateur radio.Miss it very much.Good video thanks.
Thanks for watching!
Zenith Transoceanic was a great radio for DX AM radio, FM and Shortwave
Yeah we were radio personalities in Alabama in the 70's & 80's. In the early 70's me a fellow good DJ friend would sit outside in the car having beers and listening to John records Landecker in WLS in Chicago. Along with WWL New Orleans Charlie Douglas for the professional truckers. WHAM in Rochester NY. So many back then. I worked at KLOZ in El Paso in 79 listened to the stations in the desert in California and all around. But I remember those days. Very well. A little of memories. Always said we needed to buy a FM no one listened to them. Oh well. Too bad. Anyway enjoy your shows
You are a great narrative artist. This is yet another of your creations I enjoyed tremendously.
Wow. Thank you very much! Glad you enjoyed it.
Hi. I am so glad you pointed this problem out. At times I have also experienced the same problem but I thought it was the nature of these bulbs. I will certainly now try different ones.
Best wishes!
i deal with noise on a daly basis! it wasnt till a recent power outage how much noise is in my neighborhood!
There used to be a magazine in the past called " White's Radio Log" that had a list of all US/Canadian radio and TV stations...their frequency and wattage. Clear Channel stations were highlighted ( maximum legal wattage)...
This gave you a list of stations to search for.....some stations sent out QSL cards if you wrote to them, describing what you heard, when, where you're at, etc...I had a wall of qsl cards as a teenager in the '70s...
Communications World with Whites Radio Log were great back in the 70s.
Oddly enough, I'm finishing up writing code for my own version of an internet "radio" and music player as I'm watching this. My main motivation for building it is to listen to several AM stations, that thankfully also stream. I live in a rural mountain valley that is unfortunately a "radio hole" not to mention the radio noise here.
It works great! Also, about 15-20 years ago at a barn sale, I picked up an old long-range AM radio that turned out to have great sensitivity and is battery powered as well. Best of both worlds... Thanks for another great video!
Goodness listening to you tarlk about listening to am radio back in the day. Takes me back. Honestly took me back to reality good forgotten day's listening to radio Luxembourg. On 1440. If I remember correctly. When I was camping. As a kid of 13 in 1980. Then meeting the girl I met on cb radio. All this was in the south Wales valley's in Wales UK. You are like carl sagan .sumthing keeps you watching. Thanks for the journey
Back in the 80's I had a Super Radio II and loved it. Highly sensitive and selective plus it made AM sound pretty good. Sadly I let go of it and wish I had kept it.
I have a later production Superradio in all black and it's a great performer!-John in Texas
Great find on the LED! Another source of AM noise I found in my home was a light dimmer in the kitchen even though I was 30 feet away in the garage. I used to DX AM when I was a teen and would compare notes with a friend on the other side of town on what stations we got. Great fun!
Hey Barry, just discovered your channel, nice. Brings back great memories of listening to AM/MW. Just a thought, why not insert some pictures of things you are talking about, like say a certain type of radio or antenna, etc. You could put it on the top left or right hand corners. It would give your vids even more interest.
Great suggestion! I know my productions could be a lot better as I improve my filmmaking skills. Thanks!
Enjoyed this video. I found there is usually a low noise sweet spot somewhere in the house or garden to listen to radio but never where I want to sit of course! So I ran coaxial cable in to where my armchair is feeding either a loop antenna or outdoor dipole.
I know you will already know this and I understand some people don’t want the hassle but there are some small, inexpensive ready made loop antennas available that can transform the AM and SW indoor listening experience. 73
Good tip! I have a old select-a-tenna AM antenna (It's about a foot diameter and a couple inches thick, tunable loop antenna that sits next to the radio). It really can make a difference for weak signals. Too bad they don't make those any more, but there are similar products in the market. I think I put a link to one in the video description.
@@Barry-Watson I’ve not seen those Barry, over here in the U.K. the Tecsun AN200 is a popular tuneable loop for AM. I did make a box loop with speaker wire and variable capacitor taken from an old radio but it is too bulky/ugly to leave lying around in different rooms.
The MLA 30 loop is also inexpensive and works quite well, also tried a passive YouLoop with some good results, but neither of those are tuneable.
AM is awesome.... Great dx propagation at night when the conditions are good 👍
As a young adult I got bitten by the AM BCB DX bug along with a neighbor friend of mine. I purchased a 1st generation GE Super Radio like the one you showed which really changed the game. I still have it, but it gathers dust due to the poor overall condition of the AM band as you indicated. I also did a fair amount of FM band DXing when sporadic E conditions developed - which was really a blast and just blew me away how strong stations 1000 miles away would be received and often overrode some of the local stations. Fun times they were.
Excellent video, THANKS ! A few years ago after being off the air, as a Ham operator, for a few weeks and turning on one of my transceivers, my radio was swamped with a very NASTY racket from the 160 meter band, just above the AM broadcast band through 10 meters up at 28 MHz. Every band and every frequency on each band covered with noise. I knew it was man made but what was the source. After trying to snoop out the noise, I finally was back in my Ham radio/computer room where the noise was very intense????? After a little more sniffing I found a Asian made wall-wart which came with a USB floppy drive I had purchased to retrieve some files from an old floppy disk.
I have had noisy wall-warts but nothing like this POS. It was potted so trying to troubleshoot the thing was out.
The old CF bulbs pretty much obsolete now could generate noise but I have yet to see an LED bulb generate that kind of racket like you experienced. Glad you found the problem and thanks for sharing your story.
BTW as a child back in the 1960's I was very curious about how things worked and was always taking stuff apart to see how they worked; my parents were not amused.
My Dad was a Truck driver and had an AM radio he took on trips to listen to the nighttime stations. He let me play with it when he was home and soon I was amazed with night time AM. From our home here in SC, I was listening to stations like WOWO, WLAC, WABC and so many others. That fostered my interest in radio and by age 15, I had my Novice Ham radio licenses. That was 53 years ago and I still enjoy operating CW, mostly, on the Ham bands but I also enjoy listening to the dwindling number of SW stations. Thanks again for your neat video !
Great vid. We have that same problem. The table radio was useless with the led lights ON. But what I didn't know was that it could have been coming from only one bulb. That is great to know. Thank you for posting!
Thanks for watching!
I'm into restoring old tube radios and are very much into AM radio. I came across a CC radio at a garage sale and snapped it up for $20.
Good deal!
KOMA was practically in our backyard (Moore Ok.) sometimes I could pick up my mom's hairdryer and hear the broadcast well enough to sing along..was oldies 50s-60s
At two in the morning no telling what you would hear !😊
I just couldn't get anything east of the Appalachians or west of the Rockies living in the Midwest. 😟
The led lights were a good top.
I will keep that in mind.
Great video.
Thank you!
I also have a Super Radio. In fact I had brought it back near mint condition by using parts from a junk version of the same model. The FM and AM do very well. Daytime groundwave it picks up all AM signals that Radio-Indicator says should come in with a fringe signal and then some. The FM surprised me during a road trip. It pulled in a station from 80 miles away inside a motel room with concrete walls. They’re a really good buy and worth the time to fix up. They’re also considered to be collectors items and may be worth a lot of money about 10 years from now.
Interesting information, thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
I listen to AM radio in bed. Today at 5am there was so much 50hz interference I had to hold the radio at just the right angle to be intelligible. As the sun came up and it started warming up the buzzing abated. (We are moving into winter.) There are HV transmission lines just 350 metres away. The insulators must need washing, had morning mist causing arcing and gradually dried as the sun rose. Very frustrating.
I still have mine! Listen to it every day.
i have the same model Super Radio 1, and i love it. The super radio 3 looks are feels like a lower quality case than the original. Some of the micro inverters on solar panels are another bad source of RF interference, and with all the switching power supplies in operation, late night radio reception is not the thrill it once was, but getting away from the business area I live in would certainly help. Thanks for the review.
Wish I grew up with someone who knew about rf
Thank you for pointing out the LED noise issue. After bringing an old Delco tube radio back to life, I found our living room light was a horrible noise source. Funny thing is the dimmer at anything less than full made it worse. I didn't try the bulb swapping like you did.
As a radio guy myself, I'm wondering if your noisy bulb is a fractured solder connection or a noisy diode junction.
I went to a modern casino to resolve a poor VHF (150ish MHz) performance. When I turned on the spectrum analyzer, I saw a rock concert of noise from all the gambling machines. I was seeing a noise floor of-70 to -60dBm in the building.
I had the same experience a little while back with a CFL bulb. It didn't just take out the weak stations on the AM band. It was everywhere on the dial.
Also:
Many years ago I had a "communications receiver" that had the AM band on it. It had lots and lots of filtering. I could hear AM stations from all over the map. Like you, I found it interesting what I could receive. I also used to listed to shortwave and hear stuff from around the world.
Nice! I've never had much luck picking up shortwave, I don't know if there just are not a lot of active stations anymore, or more likely my radio/antenna just isn't ideal. Thanks for watching!
@@Barry-Watson You need a seriously good antenna and a seriously good radio but there still are things to be heard. A lot of short wave stations are closing down. People need to have a reason to transmit and the reason would be the listeners. People need to have a reason to listen and the reason would be the transmitters. Thus we have that age old questions "Which went rotten first, the chicken or the egg"
Can't imagine the power bill for a 50-100+ kw transmitter, especially in a poorer country.@@kensmith5694
Ha ha., I figure at current electric utility rates and assuming efficiency, it's probably somewhere around $20 to $30 per hour to power the transmitter. Of course that's just the transmitter and doesn't account for maintenance or anything. But, that's about the cost of a talented employee.
Commercial stuff. I recall the utility bills at a manufacturing factory that I used to work at, they were pretty staggering.
I just commented on another radio channel about the Radio Shack DX-375.. it ran forever on two c- batteries, and along with the DX-390, really good on a.m dx.
Very interesting!
Thanks!
I feel the same . Here in the UK there are barely any AM stations left . AM had a certain magic . I used to listen to music and news from all over the world. Over here they even want to shut down FM in favour of digital which I hate . Sadly it's an era that will never return .
I'm also in the UK and absolutely echo your thoughts on DAB and FM. I have a Magnum Dynalab FT-101 FM tuner with a 5-element beam pointed as Sutton Coldfield and it can sound truly wonderful. DAB is great in the car when it isn't dropping out for listening to LBC, but it is chronically crap to listen to. Even to the point of power consumption of the DAB RX modules - why this hasn't improved over the last several decades that DAB has been on-air I don't know. But the plethora of stations operating at 32kbps mono means a slide away from FM quality towards competing more with AM. But the BBC seemingly aren't bothered with quality delivery, just cutting costs of distribution as the transmitter infrastructure was flogged of to Arqiva decades ago.
I’m also in the U.K. and agree. Tried DAB, even put up an external antenna for it but just dislike the compressed, digital audio and find it unpleasant to listen to. Weaker signals go robotic or completely drop out too, Amplitude Modulation gently fades in and out but nearly always readable.
During the daytime there is little choice, usually end up listening to GHR on FM, at work or at home. But at night time AM and Shortwave comes alive, Caroline on 648 is usually listenable with a loop antenna, Dutch pirates above 1610 or I look in and around the 49m band. Still plenty on unless we have a solar storm like recently.
Takes more effort these days but having said that antennas are dirt cheap. A Tecsun AN200 or MLA 30 will serve most people well and neither cost much, around £30 each.
73
I could receive England on MW in Poland few years ago but almost all is gone. Now at night I can hear 50/50 Sport radio and some traces only R.Carolina.
I got to listen to WOLF MAN JACK while cruising the Gut. love your vid`s
Thanks!
Touch lamps , power tool chargers, Chinese replacement laptop power supplies, led/cfl lamps, neon beer signs, most car phone chargers, and grow ops. Touch lamps and battery chargers can effect the neighborhood. Guy next door had several different cordless power tool chargers plugged in at the same time all the time.
I bet one of the capacitors is passing DC in that bulb.
Very informative Barry, thanks. I am in the UK and here AM was only mono but I understand that on your side of the pond AM was also broadcast in stereo and I wondered what the quality was like?
For most of my am radio listening, it was mono. I've never owned an AM stereo receiver, am stereo was introduced around 1990.
For a number of reasons, am stereo was never embraced by the listening public. Initially there were multiple encoding systems which I think caused marketplace confusion, and am stereo radios never really became popular. The really old (mono) radios from the 1930s to the 1950s usually had fairly wide bandwidth filters which allowed for pretty decent sound quality, but as the AM band became more populated radios with tighter filters that were necessary to pick out all of the stations next to each other became the norm, this limited the fidelity, limited the high frequency response. So, because of this, and because of the nature of AM being more prone to static, it just couldn't compete with the fidelity of FM Radio.
I think the listening public didn't see a compelling advantage to am stereo, when FM stereo was so popular and better sounding. Listeners who cared about sound quality, would simply choose FM.
Standard (mono) AM radio was perfectly viable for its content primarily of news, sports, and talk shows, and music for casual listening. So, it was a solution that was in search of a problem.
I put stereo am radio into the category of cool inventions that the public never really embraced, like quadraphonic LP vinyl records, betamax videotapes, and such. I'm sure there are plenty of major market am stations broadcasting a stereo signal, but I doubt they have a lot of listeners who are intentionally choosing stereo radios.
When shopping for radios, AM stereo is hardly even a selling point.
Or, at least that's the way I see the market, sitting on this side of the pond over here in the US.
I've got the Superadio, Superadio 2 and Superadio 3. Of course the original and '2' have the best appearance (by far), but the ugly '3' has one feature missing on the earlier two - an AM bandwidth switch. In 'narrow' mode, it is Superadio performance, as expected, but in 'wide' mode on local AM music stations (we still have six or seven), the audio quality almost compares with FM.
Thanks for the info!
In my area the HF noise wanders from S8 to S9, there is no discernible buzzes etc, like you had from that bulb. I can unplug the antenna from the radio and the S meter drops down as you'd expect however the background noise out of the speaker hardly changes assuming your tuned mid station.
Quite a few years ago, when LED bulbs were starting to become mainstream, I was camping up country and visited local town shops, they had these cheap 12V downlight bulbs, at a price I had never seen before, so I took one back to my caravan and hooked it up. Wow this thing knocked out basically everything, from AM broadcast radio right through to digital TV. as a radio jammer this thing was amazing. Now how many people have these in their house and have no idea - if you live in suburbia you have no hope.
Hey Barry,...Thx for the helpful info on that Led light bulb...My earliest childhood memories (Early '50's) include family gathered listening to big 'ole floor standing 4 band round dial Zenith radio in living room...Still remember sounds of Longwave Beacon--weather, Long distance AM broadcast, Police calls & Foreign shortwave radio stations !! ....Dad connected a long antenna wire thru the window & was super Cool !!....Still own my mint "GE super Radio" we bought new in '77 & works perfectly....I still DX listen AM broadcast stations on my diy built 3 tube (1942 WW2 military Rca 1625 vacuum tubes) Regenerative receiver running off 12 volt motorcycle battery....3 Huge orange Glowing tubes I call "Fire Bottles" to my Amazed grandkids !! ....I go around the house unplugging/turning off Everything during late night distant stations listening Including nightly 740 AM "Zommer Radio" oldies Toronto, Canada !! ....Was Fcc "Chief Engineer" 1Kw AM station back in '68 right out of high school + 50 Kw clear Channel station transmitter Engineer...Those were some good time experience for this young kid !!
I can relate. Sounds like an amazing time, good memories.
I feel sleep 3 times while watching this. The content was great but his voice hit me like a lullaby.
I'm listening on a full Klipsch system (RF-7s) and hear every mouth noise this guy makes and find it close to nauseating. EVERY sigh, deep congested, mucoused inhale, every thick swallow, lip smacking, you name it.
He must like quality mics but is missing on EQing these noises out correctly during their use.
Interesting subject matter, I'm a radio geek but tough to listen to..there is such a thing as Too Much detail.
Thanks. That mic is very sensitive to that sort of thing. I'll have to keep those issues in mind.
@@Barry-Watson I found the cub cadet episode the least grating and smoothest audio quality.... and it was probably a clip on mic!
Loving your channel, Barry - subscribed! That LED bulb you're holding looks like the LED grow lights I have in my studio. Do the LEDs _necessarily_ emit all that noise, or is the bulb you had in particular the problem?
Thanks for the sub! It was that particular bulb I've bought about a dozen cheap led bulbs from the dollar store, and all of them are quiet except for that one. So evidently that one had a problem although the bulb still illuminated. But it's not entirely uncommon that equipment like LED bulbs to have poor RF filtering, or filtering circuits that fail over time and they start emitting spurious radio energy.
@@Barry-Watson Gotcha, thanks very much for the info.
I have found I can't use any LED bulb in my garage door opener due to RF noise. The door will open because the light is off when it receives the signal, but it will not close as the noise overpoweres the door remote signal.
Nice video Barry about the GE SR. I have a GE SR III and a CCRadio EP in my radio collection I like to DX with. 73 de KM4WRQ
Very nice!
Growing up in the radio Intense '50's & '60's, I've watched it All fade away so that only the most Persistent enterprising youth can experience nightly AM radio long Distance reception "Knob" tuning.... The 1980's & '90's "Walkman" cassette & CD players so completely Alienated the youth interest in Broadcast radio that I don't actually know Anyone that remembers or uses a Broadcast radio anymore... I still remember listening alone (Parents away visiting) one Southeastern winter Night to WBZ AM 1030 Boston when the sudden Niagara Falls power blackout hit & began Spreading throughout the Northeast & slightly South towards me, Alone !! .....Tuning to the remaining few unaffected stations, I could hear Real time the emergency news Reports & follow the cascading Spread of the blackout.....
The small AM stations were mostly daytime only. The clear channel stations had priority.
True. Good point.
WLS in Chicago, KAAY in Little Rock, WWL in New Orleans. Charlie Douglas and the Road Gang broadcasted directly to over the road truckers from about 11PM to 4 or 5AM nationwide on 50,000watt clear channel WWL. Starting in 1973, ran for 13 years on WWL till it was picked up by satellite.
Thanks
Yep me too, lots of noise have made the AM band almost useless where I live. A friend of mine who is a Ham operator said the growth of switching power warts has a lot to do with it. The FCC used to watch over this kind thing but gave up a long time ago trying to stop it. It's always a tradeoff or so it seems.
we have 1 or 2 AM stations in my town 1 of them isn't very strong so i dont know if its coming from my town but when i listen my sdr receiver on the AM broadcast band i can pick up WLN in Tennessee and stuff from Chicago Cincinnati and Missouri with it its surprisingly the best AM radio ive ever had
I enjoy the Tecsun pl330 for its versatility.
The superradio shown on the screenshot is the absolute best version of them all, most noise today is caused by switch mode power supplies (SMPS} , If you can find an older linear power supply ( one that has a mains operated iron core transformer) Oof the proper rating your noise problems will dissappear or be greatly diminished
I used to have an electric car. Toyota BZ4X. The AM radio worked just great! No interference. I did trade the electric car for a Toyota Highlander hybrid. Like better. No charge worries. The AM radio in hybrids works well,too. Toyota has done a good job of interference filtering in their hybrid and electric cars. At present there is nothin but TRASH on both AM and FM. Seems like FM station operators haven’t figured the “loudness wars” ended years ago. Esp on the digital. The processing is so bad the audio is unlistenable. Esp on the high quality radio on my Toyota Highlander Platinum hybrid. Only radio sound system I have now. My other radios and hi-fi gear burned in a house fire.
Send that to your "old pals" at the FCC and see what they think of it.😜
The FM on that radio is actually also very good. The FM, like the AM, has a TRF front end making it more sensitive than most. I have two now. The original did not come with the external antenna connection. I have the "A" and the "B", which B has the terminals.
Thanks for the info!
I have a new (4 month old) Speed Queen clothes washer and it has unbelievable rf interference on the am radio band.
Wow, I would not have expected that. But, I suppose digital processing is in just about everything these days.
Nice discovery on pin pointing a bad LED bulb! When I do RFI snooping and get near a source of noise, I step away about 6 feet or so. If noise is still strong, then I have to deal with the issue. In other words, I can hold my portable AM radio up to just about anything that has a power supply and hear crazy screaming noise, but if I just back off a few feet and it goes away, I usually will give it a pass. In conclusion, there are so many devices now in our homes that use cheap piss poor filtered high frequency power supplies, it's nearly impossible to enjoy AM broadcast DX'ing any more.
Ah yes, the inverse square law of intensity versus distance.
I had one of those for many years. Very good, but somehow my little Zenith Royal 66 had better reception and less static.
Thanks for sharing! That was a classic 1960s radio!
@@Barry-Watson Sure thing. I also had the later generation of the Superradio. Thanks again.
I have had two friends who had LED bulbs that took out a weak vhf TV station and the other friend the light wiped out an FM station . And another place where our ham radio station has an LED "shop" light is an effective radio signal jammer .
I hear ya man !! ....So Tragic how most adults have totally forgotten & Abandoned AM radio , the kids & today's young people Don't even Know what a radio is ! .....FCC not helping situation by not Regulating & Requiring (Doing their main job Preventing Interference) All home electronic devices manufacturers to keep their digital "Noise" fully Contained in rf Shielded packaging....
The GE P780 preceded the Superradios and is worth seeking out. I have all the Superradios and prefer the P780. It is AM only, however.
Thanks. I've heard that's a really good radio, and a good sounding radio too. GE made some excellent radios back in those days.
@@Barry-Watson I have 5 of these--one parts set and one new in box. The rest I have recapped and aligned with a signal generator. They can be expensive but are well worth buying. Like I said, no FM and they must be serviced properly by a good tech. The AM-FM version, the P865, is even more expensive, doesn't perform as well and is hard to find and restore. I pick up any GE portable of the era at radio meets, flea markets, etc, as they are overlooked, excellent sets and are every bit as good--and better--as the Zeniths.
What brand was that LED bulb? I had 0-20 MHz sudden hash at my house and was terrified it was a neighbor and could not fix it.
I flipped my breakers and the noise went away when I got to the porch one.
The cuplrit was the LED bulb that I keep on 24/7. The bulb of course (like yours) was still lit. It had been running quietly for years with no problems.
The brand was TCP. I took it apart without destroying it functionally. Very few parts inside especially RFI filtering.
I had several other TCP brand bulbs and am keeping them for future comparison.
I replaced the porch lamp with a garage door opener bulb - made to make less RFI.
I also made a test jig and a TinySA spectrum analyzer for testing bulbs and bought $100 of misc LED bulbs.
The quietest are the “Edison style” with simple series strings of LEDs. They don’t need the switching supply.
Sidenote: the worst offender is one of those “fairy light” strings of LEDs which sparkle to music and change colors. Those emit past 300 MHz even when OFF and have wiped out a friend’s ham radio reception one house away.