"Fran! Are you a HAM?" I will show why the answer is no.
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By Fran

17 thoughts on “The reality of urban am radio”
  1. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Alex Paulsen says:

    I own multiple valve/tube radios from the 1930s. I'm lucky that they all work great where I live. Shortwave on the other hand is a crapshoot.

  2. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars KatjaPurrs says:

    RIP

  3. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Goofy Rulez! says:

    I used to listen to the CBS Radio Mystery Theater every night (about 40 years ago). I loved laying in the dark and imaging all the stories they told. I found them online for downloading. I can't wait to fill up my MP3 player with them.

  4. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars EEVblog says:

    With all the background crap how are you going to get your instructions for surviving the zombie appocolypse?

  5. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Richard brobeck says:

    I a,m lucky where i live I still can get Am late at night even from Canada !

  6. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars The Raul Guerrero G says:

    For a moment i thought That you were gonna say – I used to have 45 am radios

  7. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars coondogtheman1234 says:

    I live out in the country so I can DX distant AM stations on my little Grundig AM/FM/SW radio especially when the power is out and I can sometimes listen to a distant station in detroit michigan that has a talk radio show that I like. I found the same programme on a closer station but sometimes that is hard to get.

  8. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Mike Blais says:

    I remember enjoying AM skip in the 80's with nothing but a AM radio that used a 9V battery. Now most radio station are really bad.
    You use SDR sharp or a website call radio-locator too listen to some radio station. Note, if you use the newest version of SDR sharp, SDR#, then the software would allow to use someone's else SDR to listen to radio station.
    You could limit your receiving by going to a place at night without digital interference nearby.

  9. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Hola! MacEstelle says:

    Another great show

  10. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars v12alpine says:

    I do pretty well in urban environments with an active mag loop. Both HAM and broadcast. 3-foot loop in the yard covers 50khz to 54mhz and works best no more than 6ft above the ground. Rotate for minimum interference. Your demonstration of a crappy radio in an electrically busy lab with no attempt at RFI suppression is a tad lazy. Back in the day you HAD to run an outside antenna. If you are in a apartment building with no yard or patio, then I can understand your position. I've made legible voice contacts on 20/40m 500-1000 miles off an apartment patio. With digital could get to the other side of the earth.

  11. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Do It says:

    I wonder how long it takes for Sony Music to claim the Pink Noise Sound in your YouTube Video, noise made in Japan on Mount Fuji, sure harigato

  12. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Justine-Paula Robilliard says:

    Fran are you a HAM, no pineapple, no pizza… A sad loss, a bit like dial up, there was something about "going online" making the call, hearing the squeaks and squeals of the dial up process…Yeah LW/AM radio was great, at night, during the long hot windless nights, listening to stations on my headphones… Life was somehow better..

  13. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars DrRussPhd says:

    Lived north of Philly in the '70's and listened to WFIL and WIBG on AM. All the hits!

  14. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Frances Larina says:

    I suppose this means no more foxhole (razor blade, safety pin, wire wound around a juice can) radios either. I loved building them as a child at my grandmothers & was hoping to amaze my grandkids someday. 🙁
    On the bright side, nearly all AM radio near me is political extremist talk radio, so sometimes silence (or audible digital signal) is golden.

  15. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Craig Petersen says:

    Out where I live this is not too much of an issue. I regularly listen to AM 1190 KEX out of Oregon on a GE C-505B AM clock radio I re-capped. Most of the noise people hear comes from computers, routers / switches, switching power supplies, LED lighting controllers, battery chargers, PLC (power line communication) and noisy micro controllers in your appliances. However I still can hear interference in some places when I'm on HF. Most of it is switching power supplies with it's noise lobes drifting up and down the band spaced 30-60kHz apart from the few surviving wall warts I still use.

  16. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Shaggy Dogg says:

    Anyone remember “The CBS radio mystery theater “ from the seventies?

  17. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Robin Cross says:

    You have pinpointed one of the sources of the higher noise floor. There are many more too numerous to detail. The desire is that everyone will stop using their Analog radio and change to Digital. The noise you hear is the IBOC [ In Band On Channel ] digital that is an exact copy of the Analog audio. They did the same thing with FM. There is smaller space between AM allocations than there is between FM allocations.

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