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I was doing a little research into perhaps finding an original Radio for my 51 pickup.
I did an AM search on the radio I have in my home and could not get anything at all. Also spoke to a radio technician and he tells me that they cannot be converted to FM. He explainded that late at night when the Ionics are right, you can possibly get something.I was wondering if the only alternative left was to buy an aftermarket unit? Anyone have any experiencew or feedback with Original Radio reception?

I love the original radio, I restore radios for JIM CARTER, I have a 1957 Chevy pickup with the original radio and a 1954 Plymouth. In the Plymouth I have the push buttons set to NO local stations , I'm about 300-400 miles away from the station in Toronto Ont. Canada I listen to that station alot I have around 500 pre WWII house radios and can pickup stations from Chicago ILL, Minneapolis Mn. Louisville Ky ,Nashville TN, Savannah Ga, ect. on my 1922 Westinghouse RC regenative set! Once on my 1932 Atwater Kent model 558 I had station KFI Los Angeles ,Ca , I live in northern NY 35 miles from Canada.
FM does not skip like AM which makes world wide reception possible on AM, the stations I described are 50,000 watt clear channel, there are a lot of low Wattage stations out there their reception is not too far , there is also a lot of noise interference out there today and most modern AM radios leave a lot to be desidered, I also personaly do not like the programing on most FM stations .
I'm really not a good person to ask about this question ,most people would not want to live like I do, I have two TV's that I don't use, a 1949 Crosley and a 1956 Hot Point, I like to drive 45 MPH ,live off my 40 acres of land ,I have a 1952 Alis Chalmers WA and a 1937 John Deere A

I am with Bill. I like things the way they were! However, if you want to use the FM band, there are people around that can do that. I don't know how they handle the dial but they remove the chassis and install a new solid state unit. The original tuning coild for the oscillator is used in the new unit for tuning.

Thanks Bill for all the positive feedback. It sounds like radios and trucks are your thing. Would be very interesting to see your collection. Unfortunately AM reception in the area I live in is almost none excisting. In the US you have a much larger radio listening audience. US poppulation is 333 million compared to 33 million here in Canada. The larger populated Cities are approximately 1000 miles from Toronto & 650 from Montreal. The area I live only makes up 8% of the country.
I defenitely aggree that keeping things authentic is the way to go. I love the look,feel,color patina of the knobs,&the old radio face that came with the truck in 1951. Thanks Truckernix I didn't think the FM change was possible. In the meantime I will continue to look for a technician that can do this.
If I don't find anyone then I may go to plan "B"
Mount a small FM radio inside of the glove box, keep the original radio face for the original look.
I'm curious to know if anyone out there ever tried my plan "B"??

They use to sell a FM local OSC. that would mount under the dash had the FM dial you would tune, the antenna plugged in to it then you'd pluged into your radio, tuned to something like 600KC with your AM radio and when the unit was on you had FM this would be a cheaper way to go and would not hurt your radio, look on eBay or even local yard sales , BILL

Thanks a lot Bill. This sounds like the plan if I can locate one.
Also if any other readers know of a place or source to buy one of these please let me know.

I also vote for the original AM radio. In fact, truckernix helped me get mine going. I have the big tall antenna on my truck. I live on scenic vancouver island, and I listen to AM880, from Seattle, which is some distance from me. In fact, my old radio gets better reception than the ones in my friends new cars. It also, for reasons unknown to me, it seems not to pick up static from overhead powerlines.

You can also put an auxiliary input in the original radio, so you can plug in an ipod.

I did that on my radio, but I find I never use it. Our station here plays lots of Big Band and Perry Como.
I also put an auxiliary speaker behind the seat in my truck, a 12" full range, out of an old defunct console. It sounds just like Mr. Como is riding around right in my cab. Oh its a good day, for singin' the blues, and its a good day for.......

Man, if ya dont want that old AM radio dont gut it! I'm havin a bear of a time locating an original radio for my old rig, destroying a functional radio just seems wrong.

And by the way, here's one of those under-dash FM recivers on Ebay right now.

I have found that the old radios pick up AM better than the newer radios too. My guess is that the new radios are designed for FM and engineering department probably doesn't care much how good the AM works.

That's true, back in the bad old days AM was it, and there weren't stations everywhere so radios had to be sensitive enough to pick up the signals. There's also the fact that most tube radios produce a cleaner sound thyan the new stuff.

Christopher's radio is the Canadian version of the truck radio. It has the dual 6v6 output and produces twice the output power of the US made AD radio. This kind of output was also used by Buick, I believe. It probably is easier for his radio to drive the big woofer behind his seat.