question on AM radio reception

[RThompson]

The $690. 00 Mopar radio sure is one big joke on the AM band. Doesn't appear to be any trimmer adjustment on the back for the antenea. Anyone got any idea how to improve the reception short of buying another radio?

 

[DieselDoghouse]

Firstly, I am not a radio engineer though I pretended to be one as a teenager (doesn't pay real good). The real engineer in our house was my late father, but here's what he taught me: Many newer receivers (ours included??) don't have trimmer capacitors for the antenna because the Integrated circuits that function as the 'radio' are SUPPOSED to resolve that impedance match electronically (That was part of the blessing of LSI - Large Scale Integrated chips). I agree tain't always so. If you got lousy radio: AM or FM check the ground connection using a very sensitive meter - between the shield and the actual vehicle ground. Any antenna is actually one plate of a theoretical capacitor and the other plate is - ground... I found (i been there) my ground connection was over 15 ohms, which is absurd!!!. I found a bad lug connector and stud combo on the fender and managed to resolve it to 1. 8 ohms and whalah!!! better radio!. Good luck!!

 

[DieselDoghouse]

Whoops!! the ground I mean is not the power bus ground, its the antenna shield termination at the fender where the mast starts, and the antenna base is tied electrically to the rest of the truck.

 

[Blakers]

Actually the radio in my Ram (AM-FM-cassette) picks up AM pretty good - much better than the Kenwood in my Ford did.



But I don't think any of the newer radios pick up AM as good as the old ones did - they probably just don't put the effort into it as most music is on FM. Though today, with talk shows so popular, I would think they would consider an improvement.



I have about 5 preset stations for Rush Limbaugh, so I can jump between them as I drive.



Blake