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Using Ethernet For Better AM Radio Reception


I recieved this material from a reader. It started with a note in the guest book. I have decided to turn it into a web page, so others can benefit from the idea. As this is one of the most popular places, if not the most popular place on the Internet for this type of information it seems like a good idea to put things up here. The words are those of the gentleman who came up with the idea.

AM Reception was all but impossible in my office. I tried everything I could find, including external antenna's for my GE SuperRadio. Nothing helped even the slightest.

I was reviewing ethernet wiring diagrams in my office, which has about 8 different ethernet connections available. Anyone who has a single outlet would be able to add an Ethernet switch to the single port without trouble thereby gaining more ports.

Anyway, I suddenly remembered that only half the ethernet wires in a cable are used. THe blue and brown pairs are not used. So I took a 3 foot ethernet cable, cut one end off. Twisted the striped blue and striped brown cables together, as well as the solid blue and the solid brown cables. Then I placed the twisted striped wires on the Positive AM terminal on the back of the radio, and then placed the Solid wires on the Ground terminal.

Am Reception instantly doubled. Effectively I am using the wiring of the building as my antennae. One need be careful to only use the brown and blue cables, as the others are used for data transfer.

One last note, the doubling occurred only when you plug the other end of the cable (the one with the RJ45 jack) into an existing ethernet outlet.

Something similar can probably be accomplished with unused phone cable inside a home, but I have not tried that since I have digital phone lines at work.

Hope you find this useful.

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Original AM radio reception tips and links

AM radio reception tips collected from many pages

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Page last updated on Janurary 10, 2006