Terk Indoor AM Antenna Advantage

I'm a complete novice at anything to do with radios, but I recently purchased a vintage tube radio, a fully restored RCA T7-5 tombstone. The radio looked beautiful, but with the 15-foot wire antenna supplied with the set, it sounded only fair--lots of noise, even with strong local AM stations. Running 70 feet of wire out the window and hanging it over the limb of a nearby tree greatly improved the reception, but my wife quickly put an end to that, stating: "We're not going to look like the Clampetts!"I did my homework and spent a couple of days reading about loop antennas. I'm not very technical, so I decided to purchase, rather than try to build, a loop antenna. After reading all the reviews I could find, I decided to give the Terk Advantage a try.The Terk can be used via inductive coupling--that is, with no direct connection to the radio--provided you have a fairly modern AM radio that has an internal antenna. But my old tube radio required me to connect the antenna to the set directly with the supplied cable. The 6-foot cable plugs into the base of the Terk. The cable terminates with two bare wires. Attach one of these wires to the antenna terminal, and the other to the ground terminal. (If you attach both wires to the antenna terminal, as I did when I first hooked it up, it won't work.)Begin by setting the dial at the base of the Terk to roughly the same setting as the station to which the radio is set. Next, tune the radio's dial until you get the best reception. Then tune the dial on the Terk--again, until you get the best reception. Finally, remember that loop antennas are directional. Rotate the loop in small increments until you further adjust the reception (when it's out of alignment, you'll hear very little).Almost instantly, the difference in reception was impressive--noticeably better than the wire strung in the tree. With the Terk, local stations come in crystal clear on my tube radio that is nearly 80 years old, and the first night I played with it I was pulling stations in from New York and Quebec (I'm in Massachusetts).The Terk is small enough so that it can sit behind the set unseen (as a modern loop antenna just doesn't look right sitting atop a vintage tombstone radio)--aesthetically much nicer than wire strung around the room.To test the Terk's inductive coupling--that is, to use it wirelessly--I used a small portable Grundig radio that had belonged to my father. This radio is perhaps 30 years old. The radio has a tuning light that lights up red when you lock on a station. I tested it by finding AM stations for which I could get some reception, but would not make the light come on. I followed basically the same steps described above: First, tune the radio to the best reception you can get. Then pre-tune the Terk to the radio's same approximate setting. Next, place the Terk next to the radio and fine-tune the dial on the Terk to get the best reception. Finally, move the Terk in a circular motion, keeping it next to the radio, to further tune it.Using the Terk in this manner, I was almost always able to get the tuning light to light up and greatly improve the radio's reception. And even when the tuning light did not light up, reception was still greatly improved.For those reviewers who wrote that the Terk did nothing to improve reception, I just can't believe they were using it correctly. You'll have to play with this a bit to get the feel of using the Terk with your particular radio, but this is within anyone's capabilities. This little device has so boosted the performance of my AM radios that I can't imagine owning an AM radio without one.

I tried this Terk Advantage antenna with two radios. 1. The first one was a communications receiver. It has no antenna, but it has two antenna connectors. One of them is for a 500 Ohms antenna. Since (I beleive) the Terk Advantage is a 300 Ohms antenna, I connected it to the 500 Ohms antenna connector of the receiver. That connector (on the receiver) accepts two bare wires, and the Terk Advantage came with a cord which has two bare wires (to connect the antenna to the receiver), so it was simple. The other antenna connector on the communications receiver in question is for a 50 Ohms antenna, and to that connector, the C. Crane Twin-Coil Ferrite Antenna (which is a 50 Oms antenna) was connected. The Twin-Coil is an amplified antenna, and it was working from the wall AC electicity. (It can work from a 9 volts battery also.) This communications receiver has a preamplifier. I then compared these two antennas, and in my opinioin, the Terk Advantage was generally not worse (for that receiver) than the C. Crane Twin Coil antenna. I think the gain of this Terk is smaller than the gain of the Twin Coil antenna, but using the preamplifier, that could be easily cured. And the Terk sometimes was able to deliver a more clear sound, I think. (Maybe if the Twin-Coil was working from the 9 volts battery, that, with the clarity of sound, would be not the case, this I could not check because my Twin-Coil somehow refuses to work from the battery.)2. The second receiver I tried the Terk Advantage antenna with, was a table-top AM/FM radio. That radio has no AM antenna inside, but it has the 3.5 mm jack for an AM antenna. I bought a cord with 3.5 mm plugs at both ends, and connected the Terk Advantage to that receiver. The results were very good. Now I have a good AM antenna for that radio! I am glad that I bought the Terk Advantage.

This Audiovox product (made in China like everything else these days) is neat and sleek looking. It's obvious some other reviewers failed to read the owner's manual for this antenna before trying to use it. This antenna CANNOT pull in a signal that is not there. In other words, if the radio station is not beaming a signal to you, this antenna can't tune in the station's signal. It passively receives signals that arrive at it; it doesn't fly through the airwaves grabbing distant signals from outter space. According to the literature, this antenna is should help bring in weak stations that are no more than 50 miles away (and broadcasting in your direction).Keep in mind, this antenna will make a weak AM radio signal stronger. If you hear a weak station with static, when using this antenna you will probably hear a strong station with static. It strengthens the radio signal that it tunes in...it does NOT clean up that signal for you. A good, large antenna brings weak signals in stronger. Think of it as passively collecting more of the radio waves that "fly" to it (imagine fly paper)...Proper TUNING is what clears up static (assuming your radio is of good enough quality to properly tune and separate frequencies).In the box, you'll find basically 3 things. The tunable loop antenna, the instructions booklet, and the external connetcion wire.The wire has a mini (1/8") male, mono jack on one end and 2 bare wires on the other. If you have a radio like mine that has a 1/8" female jack (as does this antenna) then this wire won't easily work for you. You'll have to splice a male 1/8" jack to the bare wires before you can plug it into both the radio and the antenna. I found this disappointing given my radio set up, but it may be useful to more peope the way it is.The instruction booklet is in English and is simple and straight forward. A monkey in a space suit can understand the Owner's Manual (if it can read English, of course).This antenna is better looking than the Select-a-tenna and is a tad bit smaller too.Overall, I recommend this antenna as a low cost way to get better AM radio reception.