On 23 Feb 2005 13:31:56 -0800, jim rozen
wrote:

In article , Don Foreman says...

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 08:57:14 +1300, Roger_Nickel
wrote:

Car radios have better low signal performance than the average domestic
radio--so use a car radio in your house and get a good external aerial.

Yup. AM car radios usually have tuned RF stages, house radios very
seldom do.

No physically small antenna will work as well as a long wire on AM.
The longer and higher it is, the better it will work. A quarter wave
at mid-broadcast-band is 75 meters, so a small antenna just doesn't
have much capture.

With the possible exception of tuned loops. Those can be very
handy for nulling out local intereference in spite of their low
cross section.

Good point, Jim. Some tube-type AM radios had loops comprised of
several turns of Litz wire spiral-wound on a fiberboard form the size
of the back of the radio. Sometimes it *was* the back of the radio.
They worked quite well if the radio was "pointed" at the radio
station.