Profane comments. Removed by Magic Eye.

This is a great idea and I can attest that it works great. Several years ago a co-worker gave me a commercially made version of this tuner, called "Select-A-Tenna". The tuning capacitor does not have any drive ratio (it is 1:1) but it works fine.

I use the tuner with my RCA X60 table radio in the living room. The X60 does not have any type of built-in antenna, and my wife didn't want wires all over the living room, so I use this device for the antenna. It does a great job of suppressing severe IM responses (local KFOX-1650 IM'ing onto fringe-distant KOGO-600 and KCBS-740).

As shown in photos below, I use a coupling coil to get the signals to the set. I was using this set-up in my Youtube demonstration video for the X60.

Thanks for the posting! I had been wanting to make another one and you have done the coil design for me, thanks!

I guess it's just a matter of the words one uses.

What you call a "booster" or a "tuner," I call a resonant loop antenna. You will find lots of info on the Internet and one of the ARF members, Dave N2DS, has some nice articles on his web site.

http://makearadio.com/loops/index.php

I just made a shortwave loop, using an embroidery hoop (23 inch diameter) with a single turn coupling coil and 100 pF capacitor. It really brings in signals and can be tuned to either 40 meter ham band or 31 meter AM broadcast band.

http://kr1s.kearman.com/html/hooploop.html



Rich

You can just as easily place any other AM radio (without power turned on).. about 4-6" in back of the powered/active radio (back to back so their respective antennas are near each other) and tune it to the same station.
... and just the inductive coupling of the two antennas will boost the signal in the active radio.
Try it.. it works.

This is what I use with my Silvertone 2441 farm radio, except that I am using a Terk AM Advantage as the resonant loop, with a cheap AM loop hooked up to the antenna/ground connections on the set.

At the risk of steering "off-topic," I can answer your question.

I have several 4-tube farm radios. There were various styles. Some were meant for use on the 32-volt DC supply system used by many farmers before the Rural Electrification program got going during the Great Depression. Others were battery sets. Many were made to use tubes with 2-volt filaments, matching single-cell storage batteries; later sets moved to 1.4-volt (dry-cell) tubes. All were meant for use "in the country," where no powerlines existed.

By World War II, most such sets had settled into a sort of "AA-4" configuration. The usual tubes in an AA-4 farm radio were a 1A7 for the converter, a 1N5 for IF, a 1H5 for detector and first AF, and a 1A5 for audio output. There were usually only two controls: on/off-volume and tuning. Some companies, Zenith included, continued to make them post-war; due to war shortages, Rural Electrification did not reach some areas until after 1950 (including the house I grew up in, which didn't get line power until the year I was born).

The AA-4 farm sets are simple and straightforward, and while they aren't very great performers, they can still be lots of fun, especially when the power goes off.

Your booster, and others like it, are a great help to them.

Hope this helps.



Larry

Yeah, but then you had farmers daughters more than willing to have some fun

This is a thread on AM Loop Antennas.

Enough "farm life" comments please Guys.....

Chuck

Who/what is "Magic Eye". and how does it remove "Profane Comments?"

Taken care of Oz.

Chuck

Same question here: Who or what is 'Magic Eye'?

I read R. Jepsen's messages before the censor got to them, and I don't recall anything so offensive they had to be completely removed. I believe that moderators have the ability to edit any message. If that's true, then why not just delete or change the word(s) that are so offensive? Is it really necessary to destroy the gist of the entire thread? Or does someone just have a bone to pick with R. Jepsen?

Chuck- what's going on? What do you mean by 'Taken care of'? Thanks for any information you can provide.

I'm guessing that it's something R. Jepson added later, as he did edit the original post 3 times.

No, you're all incorrect. Disgusted with unnecessary censorship of fellow users, R Jepsen deleted his own messages in protest and came very close to abandoning the AR board. A generous donation that was planned is currently being withheld until further notice.

Can you explain "Magic Eye"?

Sure, this was my old avatar and reference to "magic eye" was intended to be a joke. You generally no longer see these in modern electronics. They've been replaced by spy cameras just about everywhere you go. Big Brother is watching!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_eye_tube

Nothing like a tuned loop to DX or clear up local garb.e Tons of stuff on internet but a 2X2 foot 14 turn tuned by a scavanged 365 mfd capacitor nest to or coupled with a 1 turn sensor wire Ariel/Ground or not connecterd at all all but in proximity will absolutey stun you. At night really worth doing. Yeah works with little transistor sets too,