Car radios have to be built to high standards to provide decent reception in a moving vehicle, in the presence of varying terrain, with a serious nearby source of interference (your engine!) all while being bounced around on North Country roads. This radio is located in your automobile. RADIOS: For good reception, a radio must have good selectivity (selectivity is a radio's ability to separate weak stations located nearby, on the FM dial, strong stations) and good sensitivity (the ability to receive weak, distant, stations at all!)Ĭar Radios: You already probably have a radio with these features. If you have all three of these, you could potentially receive an FM station up to 100 miles away! However, most of us have, at best, only one of these items To receive and enjoy our quality programs to the fullest, you'll need the three A's of radio: FM is a truly wonderful thing if handled correctly. I think that may have been the day I decided to become a HAM.NCPR broadcasts throughout the North Country on FM. Well he was all excited about it as well, and we took the little radio and lay it next to the large coax that carried the radio signal out to the large tower, suddenly I had a major shortwave signal. 45RPM records that they received but did not play on the air. Well we got all excited and went down town to talk with the local DJ who we made regular trips to as he gave us old. To my surprise, instead of AM, I now was receiving short wave signals. My buddy and I wanted to listen to some music, so I took a big old 6 volt lantern battery and wired it up to the little radio, then taped the radio to the battery that was, of course much larger then the radio. One day, the battery gave up, and I had spent my last dollar on a pack of ciggerets. I had an old Jade blue/green pocket transistor radio, it played pretty good but of course, as these radios were, the sound was very tinny. When I was a boy, the transistor radio was just becoming the thing. The difference was remarkable all we had to do was hold the radio near the counter and signals would jump out of the speaker.īe careful not to bring the wire or yourself anywhere near overhead electric lines, and if you live in an area prone to thunderstorms, either taking the antenna down when not in use or providing a really good ground and a knife switch to switch between it and the radio coil would be an important modification. I rigged up one of these antennas, making a loop under the glass counter top. It was situated in a steel building and radio reception inside was non-existent. When I was in college, I worked in a retail electronics store. Switched on, and I had to turn the volume down. Switched off, and a station was barely audible.
#CAR RADIO ANTENNA BOOSTER DIY SERIES#
The first time I made one of these antenna systems, I added a small switch in series with the ground connection. You may have to twist and turn the radio, and move it closer or farther away, but stations that were weak and scratchy will leap out at you.
Turn your radio on, select 'AM' and set it near the coil. Take the rest of the wire and run it out the window and tie it to something (keep it high enough not to strangle somebody who walks by) or else tie a fishing sinker or big hex nut on the end and chunk it up a tree. Tape it to the wall, or to a piece of cardboard propped against the wall. Run the wire to where you want your radio to be situated and make a coil of six turns, about the diameter of a saucer. The center screw of an electrical receptacle (or one of the screws on a light switch) would work fine. The first thing you do is to connect one end of the wire (strip the insulation off) to some type of ground. It is very small in diameter but pretty strong. An ideal size would be a piece of either doorbell or telephone wire - just one conductor. The wire doesn't have to be very large in diameter. (Radio signals don't care if the wire is insulated or not.) Fifty feet would be oodles. The easy way is to buy (or otherwise locate) a length of insulated wire. The hard way is to buy bare antenna wire with a couple of insulators for either end and mount that.
You can go to a lot of trouble or not - it's up to you. If not, five bucks ought to do it.įirst, as in the old days, you need a long wire antenna. There are three parts to this antenna system, and if you are an adept scrounger, it won't cost you anything.
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