What's the best car radio for AM Dxing?
rik...@earthlink.net
<vin...@bellatlantic.net> wrote:
> I was at the top of Cadillac Mt. in Acadia National Park with my trusty Sony
> 2010 spinning the dials in midday. I noticed a lot of noise from this rather
> old model, and remarkably unsatisfactory performance.
Digitally tuned receivers produce noise from their microprocessors.
Recent designs produce much less than early radios like the 2010.
The 2010 was also vulnerable to rf transistor burnouts due to
transients and induced voltages from lightning. One the input
transistor was gone, the am still worked but the sensitivity was much
reduced and the noise much more noticible.
Not all caar radios were superior performers on am however. VW's with
their short amplified antennas never worked well with aftermarket
radios like the Sonys especially after electronysis corrupted the coax
at the antenna.
rick
Greg and Joan
Tom
"Greg and Joan" <gg...@sprynet.com> wrote in message
news:akpgf3$ni7$1...@xuxa.iecc.com...
> Digital radios also work on 10 khz splits -- not good for European DXing.
>
Many are switchable to 9khz, but the books usually do not tell the owner how
to do it.
Tom
John Pinckney
for AM DX, you're about 20 years too late.
The first car radio I DX'ed with was a Delco mudmeister in the dash of my
father's '68 Impala. It was pretty good in terms of sensitivity, selectivity,
s/n, etc. The next one was also pretty good, an OEM Philco in my 1973 Galaxie
500. After that, it's been a waste of electronic-grade silicon. The new
receivers suffer from poor image rejection, phase noise, capture ratios fat
enough to fly an A380 thru, amongst other ills.
I'd like to invite comment on this from overseas, as well. Back in 1994, I had
a Fiat Punto with a Becker LW/MW/FM radio ant one of those ultra-small antennas
in the upper rim of the windshield, sort of like on the Ford Focus. I only got
to DX with it one night from Normandie, and my best DX was Radio Monte Carlo!
Vince Cavaseno wrote:
> I was at the top of Cadillac Mt. in Acadia National Park with my trusty Sony
> 2010 spinning the dials in midday. I noticed a lot of noise from this rather
> old model, and remarkably unsatisfactory performance.
>
> However, when I went back to the car ('97 Ford Taurus with high end OEM AM
> Stereo/FM Stereo Cassette w/CD Changer), I was shocked and amazed at what
> came in. WFAN, WCBS, and (I believe) WOR with excellent readability and s/n
> ratio. FM results were also good. This lead me to the question: Has anyone
> seen any reports on what the best car radio for AM DXing is?
>
> The way the Taurus radio is physically formatted in that oval shape would
> seem to make it difficult to use outside of the car...then again, I haven't
> taken it out to see what it looks like.
Greg and Joan
Tom wrote:
Absolutely. My daughter is in the Army in Germany and insisted on taking her
Saturn to Europe. I called Saturn (customer support) and asked if there was a
way to do that - convert the radio to a 9 khz split, and also the FM radio to
work on 100 khz splits ... they didn't know how, but she gets enough stations
anyway....
Tom
"John Pinckney" <long...@pop.mail.rcn.net> wrote in message
news:al5bip$sr7$1...@xuxa.iecc.com...
> Old-timers may disagree, but I'd have to say that if you want a good car
radio
> for AM DX, you're about 20 years too late.
>
I agree 100%. I have a couple of late '60s/early '70s
PhilcoFord/AeronutronicFord radios that are excellent.
Tom
Mark Howell
The OEM Delco unit in my '92 Eldorado is a terrific DX'er. Also has
AM stereo.
Mark Howell
Greg and Joan
John Pinckney wrote:
> Old-timers may disagree, but I'd have to say that if you want a good car radio
> for AM DX, you're about 20 years too late.
I had a fantastic 1975 Buick Century with a Delco radio. It used an antenna wire
in the windshield. It was directional, but extremely sensitive.
Mark Roberts
| The OEM Delco unit in my '92 Eldorado is a terrific DX'er. Also has
| AM stereo.
No AM stereo here, but the no-name unit in my 1991 Honda Accord has
had excellent AM performance. The very best one I had, though, was
a Delco AM/FM unit salvaged from a 1970s era GM car, installed in
my 1971 Chevrolet Impala, and tuned up by the CE of the station I
was working for at the time.
--
Mark Roberts | "This is local television. Get off your high horse!"
Oakland, Cal.| -- Gary Radnich to Wendy Tokuda on KRON-TV's
NO HTML MAIL | 9 pm newscast (said in jest), August 9, 2002
Ray Collins
Raynews:al6b55$nbf$1...@xuxa.iecc.com...
Larry Weil
>Try to find a Becker (Mercedes Benz) at a auto wrecker.
Or you can buy a Becker Mexico from C. Crane. It's about the only digital
radio that can tune AM in 1 KHz steps. But it is expensive!
--
Larry Weil
Lake Wobegone, NH