Re: What Can You Hear From the Top of a Tower? AM tower RX'ing!

I did a similar experiment, having the tuner with a big 290 microhenry loading coil and capacitor, going to a ten foot antenna outside in the back yard. I had a portable radio and put it near the coil, within a few feet I could peak up radio reception with the capacitor, no direct connection to the radio at all, just induction. It was a sharp peak.

You can also couple to a coil on PI network on tube rig and it will work too. Another thing it feels similar to, the antenna trimmer in earlier car radios. The radio would have a sticker that would say something like, 'Tune in a weak station near 1400 K.C. and adjust trimmer for maximum volume'.

An antenna analyzer, VNA, or signal generator, they're great tools to have, but you can do a lot to tune up your antenna with just a receiver and knowing how to use it, it's all I did when I started out.