[Simon Wa3uay]

Thank you all; I suspect the old Philco "aerials" nulled out certain known (at the time) interfering frequencies with all those little resonant circuits, thereby making it "noise-reducing", I don't know. Yes, antennas can get expensive, but they are important because they are the 'first stage' of the radio preceding the amplifier or first detector and tuned properly can hear (and transmit) around the world!
Regards,
Simon