There's an AM radio station I like to listen to, but being 20 miles outside the city, it's hard to pick up, especially in bad weather. Getting it indoors at my place of work is also difficult on the typical AM/FM radio. So what I've done is rigged up a streaming server on my Linux box which can take my current AM radio's output and stream it to me at work (and, using streamripper, save the shows for later playback, which is very cool.)

This works well, except, as mentioned, the reception is poor even at home. The radio I'm using is a $10 AM/FM/Casette player that just barely works. So I was hoping to find either (a) a cheap boom box that has a really good built-in AM antenna, (b) one that has an input for an external AM antenna, or (c) a used home receiver component that takes an external AM antenna. Now the one caveat to any external antenna is it has to be something I can put in my apartment, it can't be one of those giant metal deals that you mount on your roof.

I don't wanna sink too much into this project, so if there is some kind of homegrown solution I could use to improvise an AM antenna or something, I'm all ears. Any ideas?

All of the radio courses I took when I was at school for broadcasting mentioned that tuners built for home use are basically crap unless you spend some chunk of change on it. Tuners in car stereos, however, are much much better. You might want to look at a power invertor for a car deck (possibly the one you took out to install the empeg). You'll need an antenna too, but that shouldn't be too much money.

A lot of AM stations do streaming from their sites now as well. If the shows you like are syndicated, you may find other stations that web cast if your local one does not.

How is streamripper?

How about an AM/FM Radio card for the machine? They allow you to attach external antennas, so you should be able to get fairly good reception.

Tuners in car stereos, however, are much much better. You might want to look at a power invertor for a car deck (possibly the one you took out to install the empeg). You'll need an antenna too, but that shouldn't be too much money.

Hmm. Interesting idea. I do still have my Mustang's factory radio hanging around. Isn't the AM antenna for a car different from the antenna that sticks up in the air outside the car? I was always under the impression AM antennas were generally non-directional so they were stashed somewhere inside the components.

A lot of AM stations do streaming from their sites now as well. If the shows you like are syndicated, you may find other stations that web cast if your local one does not.

Yeah, this station is just the local Philly sports station and they don't do streaming.

How is streamripper?

Pretty nice. Only does MP3 streams, but does them pretty well. I just use it in command-line mode via cron jobs (UNIX scheduling daemon) to record the shows I like each day.

How about an AM/FM Radio card for the machine? They allow you to attach external antennas, so you should be able to get fairly good reception.

Hmm, hadn't thought of that. Antenna would probably have to be run pretty far away from the PC though, since computers and monitors wreak havoc on AM signals.

I don't wanna sink too much into this project, so if there is some kind of homegrown solution I could use

Go to your local stereo shop -- they will have boxes full of OEM AM/FM radios pulled out of customer cars when they upgraded their stereos. You can probably pick one up for free or for a nominal cost.

As SE_Sport_Driver said, the reception and general quality of an OEM car radio is orders of magnitude better than any home radio you are likely to find.

I have a real kluged setup for turning cassette tapes into MP3s, involving an old AM/FM/Cassette car radio. I tried powering it with a battery charger, but the output of that was so dirty that it induced noise into the signal. So, instead I just hooked it up to the motorcycle battery I use to run my BikeEmpeg, and that worked fine. If all you are running is radio, a small motorcycle battery would probably run it for days between recharges.

AM radios are not fussy about antennae -- how many cars have you seen with coat hangers stuck into the broken off aerial masts, and they still work just fine.

tanstaafl.

For years, I used an old car radio linked to a cassette deck with a simple plug in timer, as my kit for recording radio programmes.
After experiment, I found that a simple length of TV aerial coax into the back of the car radio with a banana plug, with the other end in the loft with the outer core stripped back about a yard, worked fine.

How about an AM/FM Radio card for the machine?

Got one you're familiar with? The only ones I've found are ISA cards that won't work under either of my two available OSes (Windows XP or Linux.)

For years, I used an old car radio linked to a cassette deck with a simple plug in timer, as my kit for recording radio programmes.

How did you power your old car radio? And how would I go about stepping the speaker-level outs down to RCA levels? Would a simple attenuator from Radio Shack do the trick?

Wow. Only one radio card driver in the Linux kernel seems to support AM, the ADS Cadet driver, and it's an ISA card.

And I thought this was going to be an easy one.

I do actually have one ISA slot on my Linux machine that currently has a v.90 modem in it that I never use. There seems to be an ADS Cadet available for $11.50 + $10 S/H on Ebay right now, or for $6 + 7.25 S/H from a retailer with ~5/10 on Reseller Ratings.

Also looks like this software can tune the ADS Cadet via the command line, which would be perfect. I'd just need to hope the on-board "shielded AM antenna" reception is as good or better than what I already have from my boom box. If not (and with all the electrical interference, who knows) I'd have to invest in an external AM antenna, which it does seem to support via an 1/8" jack.

Hmm, maybe I'll give this a shot. If the reception is good, it's the best solution, and I can even tune it without physically being there.

You want great AM reception? Get the CC Radio

How did you power your old car radio?

Simple 12volt power supply brick, this one was a 1.5 amp one from an electronic organ that I picked up in a sale.

how would I go about stepping the speaker-level outs down to RCA levels?

Mine was a Blaupunkt from the 70's, with a line in/out on din plugs to attach a cassette recorder/player (They fitted them in Rolls Royce's at the time) - but as it's you, I went to all the trouble of hooking it all up again and got a perfectly good signal from the speaker outputs. I turned the volume down and very, very gradually brought it up whilst watching the record indicator on the cassette deck, but you're probably right, an attenuator would be a better solution.

Hi, I'm really familiar with this problem. In the LA area, most radio stations are owned by one of nine companies and most are clones of each other, so we have one good FM station and one good AM station. I think that you'll find most any radio built in the last 30 years will have lousy AM band support. Good AM support can be found on most any component stereo from the early '70s and '60s. These can be had cheap from second hand stores.

As for the antenna, the AM band wavelength is something like 200 meters, so the smallest resonant antenna would be 50 meters long. Obviously that ain't gonna happen in an apartment, so just run a small wire as long as you can get it. What I did at my apartment is throw a tiny wire from my balcony to a near by tree, and then threw it from tree to tree and let it end about 100' away. In the end it was really hard to see if you were looking for it. This worked really well with an early '70s vintage Pioneer stereo.

Good luck!

so just run a small wire as long as you can get it

I did that when I was keen to listen to shortband, it got blown down in a gale and I found that for medium wave, the length of co-ax up to the loft worked just as well and cut out interference generated in the house rather better, so I never put it up again.
However, I think that your point on getting a 50's/60's receiver, from when AM was important, is a very good one.

I just recently purchased the Tivoli Audio PAL: http://www.tivoliaudio.com/ppalgry.htm

It has a great AM Tuner. Plus as a bonus the FM Tuner is very good as well.

You want great AM reception? Get the CC Radio

I saw that during my Googling, but the price is just a wee bit out of my range.