Re: Do cars with plastic bodies, like the Saturn, give bad radio reception?

I have a '75 Dart on the road with a factory AM-only radio. Unfortunately, the fuse in the fusebox is good, but the radio does nothing when turned on. It appears that all of the wires are in place, including to the one dash speaker, but the only think I can see it do when I turn it on is slightly dim the dome light when switched on - absolutely no audio.

I bet if it were working, being designed solely for AM transmission, it would pick up stations quite well. It's solid state... I might have to tear into it at some point. The preset station buttons still seem to work as intended.

Reply to
Michael Trew
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**Audiosound?
Reply to
Trevor Wilson

** How'd you guess?

Yes, the famous AM100 valve tuner.

BTW mine has a few mods now.

  1. 4 pin mic plug and socket for the frame antenna.
  2. Op-amp ( TL071) buffer for the output with voltage doubler +/- 8VDC supply off the 6.3v heater run.
  3. Out level control on the rear panel with 6.3mm jack socket.
  4. Hum loop eliminator in the AC safety ground.
  5. New ceramic valve sockets.

It needs a new EM84 "magic eye" indicator - but they are darn expensive.

The Carver tuner is interesting:

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Sound sample from the AM part:

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..... Phil

Reply to
Phil Allison

It should work. There are several DX sites but I don't know how useful they are. DX Magazine was good but it was produced by one man who died in 2017. Arnie Coro had a 'DXers Unlimited' show on Radio Habana but I think that's been off the air for several years too.

The sad truth is many of the knowledgeable radio people are aging out. Even the international broadcasters that kept the airwaves interesting

30 years ago have went to the internet. At its peak Deutsche Welle had 15 500 KW transmitters. I don't think any are active now.

I've spent some time in Arizona south of Gila Bend. In the evenings I enjoyed the AM oldies station in Oklahoma City. Mornings I could get news and music from California. Curiosity about the whys and wherefores got me into ham radio.

Reply to
rbowman

I never got into HAM radio, maybe one day. I used to sit at night and tune through distant AM stations that I could pull in from eastern Ohio. One of my favorites to listen to is still 650 WSM in Nashville. Kind of an odd hobby for a pre-teen/teenager growing up in the internet era (I'm 26 now for reference), but I've always enjoyed it.

Reply to
Michael Trew

True, but with one notable exception. The original space suits were ugly green pressure suit affairs, that looked awful in press photos and videos. So, NASA hired fashion designers Rudi Gernreich and later Pierre Cardin to design something futuristic and more in line with

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Jeff Liebermann                 jeffl@cruzio.com 
PO Box 272      http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Done. Locally, KSCO's antennas are located in Corcoran Lagoon (Santa Cruz, California): The excellent salt/brackish water grounding is responsible for KSCO's very strong signal and large coverage area.

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Jeff Liebermann                 jeffl@cruzio.com 
PO Box 272      http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

**'Cause his AM tuners were fabulous. I sold his SS AM tuners in my shop (well, in truth, only a minuscule number, because they were very expensive) and used to delight in demonstrating them to unsuspecting customers who thought they were listening to an FM transmission. Very impressive things. No wonder every radio station used one for off-air monitoring.
**I'll see what I can find in my valve box(es). You never know your luck.
**Very interesting. I've never had one across my bench. As a teenager, I built a really nice valved, TRF tuner, using an 'infinite impedance' detector. It was from a Kiwi radio magazine from the 1950s. It was so nice, I once called up the radio station (prolly 2SM back then) and asked them to change the stylus on their 'B' turntable, because it was obvious that the stylus was worn/chipped. Geez it sounded nice.
Reply to
Trevor Wilson

Trevor Wilson wrote: ================

** The AM100 valve model was about A$125 in 1974.

Got mine at a discount cos I was working for Woollarah Hi-Fi at the time. The SS version came out later.

..... Phil

Reply to
Phil Allison

**My recollection is that the SS tuner (AM only) sold for around $500.00 in 1985-ish. For about $300.00 one could buy a quite decent, all digital, Japanese AM/FM tuner. Of course, the AM section was utter shit. I suspect the reason why Aussie AM tuners reached a pinnacle of quality was in no small part due the late adoption of FM in this country.
Reply to
Trevor Wilson

I grew up in upstate New York and in the early mornings WOWO in Fort Wayne came in loud and clear with their reports on hog belly futures. They were a 50000 watt clear channel at the time. Inner City Broadcasting bought the station for the express purpose of cutting it down to 10000 watts. WLIB, in NYC, is a black-owned station that is also on 1190 AM. With WOWO dialed down, WLIB could go to 24 hour operation.

One of those twists of fate I worked in Fort Wayne years later and flew out of Smith Field, a small airport north of town. Climbing out to the southwest you'd pass WOWO's antenna. It was sort of spooky looking over and seeing an antenna

Reply to
rbowman

** Probably correct. The AM100 was sold at a tiny profit mainly direct to existing Audiosound customers. Dealers were rarely involved. Only competition back then was the " Wright Audio Developments" SS tuner. As you know, I worked for Allen Wright too and while there modded a few tuners so the notch filter was at 9 kHz. At that time he was building an upgraded model, full of ICs and featuring an LED digital frequency readout. Till Ian Pogson of EA magazine stole the whole design.

FYI:

Took one of Allen's new models ( the AWE Tuner) home one night and did A-Bs with my Audiosound. Though generally similar, the AM100 had a big edge in audio bandwidth on the ABC stations. Like his earlier tuner, the new one also had no bypass switch for the notch filter.

** Dull and woolly sounding - you mean ?
** Plus the fact that Aussie AM broadcast radio was far superior to other countries in sound quality.

( far fewer stations and much further apart compared to the US and Europe)

..... Phil

Reply to
Phil Allison

**I have one of Allen's original ones here. I tried to pull it apart, but I can't figure out how it comes apart. Glued?
**Well, yep. There was one Japanese tuner with a half decent AM stage:

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The internals were more like a proper communication receiver than a domestic one. Impressive beast.

**Yeah, good point. You could enjoy far wider bandwidth without interference.
Reply to
Trevor Wilson

Trevor Wilson wrote: =================

** I never had any problem opening one. Maybe some fool has glued the top on your example.

Intriguing fact is that is it full of Australian made ( ATxxx numbers) silicon transistors plus one FET. Aegis RF transformers, Roblan AM tuning gang and 6:1 reduction drive.

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See 1/3 down the page.

..... Phil

Reply to
Phil Allison

If you depart 17 out of GRR, there's a ~2000 MSL tower about 10 miles south.

Reply to
Buck Fiden

And, you add _nothing_ of value to sci.electronics.repair ... ... probably not to humanity all-in-all.

Reply to
Allodoxaphobia

Oh. I dunno....

Perhaps a little competition for the Drongo from Down Under? No where near as polished, of course.

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

Reply to
Peter W.

There was nobody doing maintenance but that was the thought that chilled me -- somebody had to climb that tower. Flying around in a Tomahawk, no problem, thinking about hanging off the tower, sympathetic acrophobia.

Reply to
rbowman

I can't fathom wanting to handicap a clear channel station just to make some smaller station go 24 hours... that seems like one step forward and two steps back.

Reply to
Michael Trew

**Yep. That's the one. I'll dig it out next weekend and have another shot at pulling it apart.
Reply to
Trevor Wilson

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