The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay The Radio Bench Restored 1949 radio works, but...

Fred,

The radio I restored and sent to you to check it out over two years ago, finally got installed. I have one station that it picks up at the high end of the scale. Probably because I'm in Myrtle Beach, SC. Not many AM stations around locally any longer. However the volume on the radio seems extremely low. Have to turn the volume up all the way to hear any music on that one station. Sorry for the two part question. Is that normal, or can the volume and sensitivity of the radio be increased for maximum reception? Thank you again for your help and advice.

Tim

|Hi Tim,
generally speaking the radio doesn't really have an adjustment to increase sensitivity. However there is a trimmer screw adjacent to where the antenna plugs in. That is used to get the best performance from the antenna. You might want to try adjusting that. The other things I would ask is whether the antenna is fully extended and also whether the truck is sitting in a building with a lot of metal. Extending the antenna above the roof of the truck makes a big difference in my case. You might even try substituting a length of wire for the antenna to see if it has a problem.

Where I live the AM band is extremely weak and my modern daily driver does not do as well as my truck radio. However about 9:30 at night the band livens up, mostly with stations from the US. This is when I enjoy my old console radio listening to broadcasts from far away. You may want to test it later in the evening.

Hi Fred,

Thank you for the fast response. You are correct. I have not raised the antenna above the roofline of the truck and have not tried the reception at night. I will try both of these ideas and leave the antenna trim alone for now. I may be expecting too much from a 71 year old radio also. I'm sure the volume on these old tube radios is not what we get from a solid state radio of today. Thank you for your help and suggestions as always!

Tim