I have a couple of old radios that do not quite compare to my newer radios. Is there anything I can do to the old radios to improve their reception and thereby the quality? Thanks.
I have an old tube radio where the ant. connection had a capacitor connected to it, by replacing it I got better reception. Basically a wire came from ground (chassis) to the capacitor then to the wire wound ant. Unlike my mentioned radio, many tube radios will have a connection for ground and ant. Try adding or removing the ground wire, it depends which way will work better. Sometimes there may be an adjustable screw outside the unit for easy access, check for that and adjust it while listening to a fairly weak station. Otherwise old radios just will not get the reception of a new radio. If all else fails, like Wayne said, get a better ant.
capbuster Messages: 51 Registered: April 2010 Location: wise va. U.S.A.
Baron
How old ? Some older radios requried a long wire . A long wire ran around ceiling ect. I have one ran outside 30 foot up 200 feet long. Works great . And grounding theses sets to earth helps to.
If need more info i can help . Capbuster.
Wayne Parham Messages: 18801 Registered: January 2001
Illuminati (33rd Degree)
You know, you're right. I have a couple of radios that have no built-in antenna. Both are older radios, pre-WWII. Seems like after that, most AM radios have built-in antennas. I'm so used to internal ferrite coils on AM radios, sometimes I forget that not every radio has one.
If you don't hook up an external antenna on a radio without an internal built-in antenna, it will get absolutely nothing, not even the 50Kw boomer stations. But when you connect an antenna, they work great. I personally prefer loop antennas for MW (AM) radios, longwires for SW.
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