[morzh]

PT57

I think I might now what your problem is. You are in Palm Coast.
My parents are in Palm Coast (area F) also and I just gave my father restored by myself Westinghouse which was receiving just fine here in NJ. My father says they do not have any good station nearby as the radio receives some but weakly and the programming is not that interesting either.

What I think you should do is just try a large external antenna. This may work.

PS. You are not my father by any chance, are you?

[PT57]

Morzh said..."I think I might know what your problem is. You are in Palm Coast."
Yeah. I get that a lot. But let's not open that can of worms.

I tried stringing 48 feet of 16 gauge wire out the window but that really didn't help. I'm sure I need to do more than just that.

[morzh]

Well, still may be a part of the problem. At least I know for a fact this happened to my father. And here in Jersey the reception was just fine with a mere 3 feet of wire.

Let me ask you this: do you know anyone nearby (or in Palm Coast) who has an AM radio and does get good reception without using an aerial tower for an antenna?

I can ask my father to ask a friend of his who is also there, in Palm Coast, and who recently got into radio restoration, if he gets good reception in his part of the town.

In the meantime you could try to elevate the wire.

But short of doing alignment and the thorough check by yourself I do not think you can reliably say that the radio should perform well where you are and that it does not do it as a result of misalignment or damage in shipping.

If you are equipped to do that, great. Otherwise you could try to return the radio, but it may be a perfectly good radio nevertheless.

[codefox1]

Yes concrete is an excellent signal blocker; damp even better!, surpassed of course by Steel
driven deep into the ground. Careful with any attempt to directly attach an external antenna on any set, especially a transformerless one. Just want you to be here for many more discussions!

[morzh]

Well, he tried the wire outside the window so it is no longer the concrete, I guess.

Palm Coast has many tall straight pines so a well-trained squirrel can get the wire all the way up!

Oh, and this radio does use a transformer. Which is of course still not a reason to stop being careful.

[marv]

Check your RF coil for continuity. I just did a 37-660 and after recap etc. the AM band had lousy reception. Bottom line, had open primary of the RF coil. After I rewound it receives very well.