Just want a good AM portable radio

K Charles wrote:
Heathkit or Radio******have kits so you can make one.

Charles... You are a tad out of date.. Heathkit went out of business over 20 years ago, And though there have been revival attempst (Last I knew was one in progress now) no products on the market yet.

Seriously if you want a good AM radio take your Grunding (As close to the proper spelling as I can get) and 100-200 feet of wire and a long (like 3 foot) screwdriver (Phillips is best)

Attach one end of the wire to the screwdriver

Wrap 2x around the radio

Toss the wire over tree limbs (Any means posible) till it is fully deployed I use a 2 pound weight. and a 50 foot rope.

The problem with AM radio is that it is teh 300 meter band (300 meters is the wavelength of the station (Super station at that I think WMVP, Chicago is on 10) located at 10 (1000 KHz) roughly in the middle of the dial

So a quarter wave is 75 meters (About 80 yards) long, that is the ideal antenna length.. What portable radios use is a ferrite rod antenna, this is a coil of wire inside the case, it is very, very limited in its range compared to a good long wire up in the trees

NEEDS not be all that high up in the trees, I like 20 foot minimum cause a wire that long is going to cross roads or sites and if you do that you need to keep it over sixteen feet or it might get snagged on a passing RV.