The magic of a tuner
 

Does anyone else feel that a certain "magic" of a tuner is all part of a tuner experience? I'm in my 30s and I remember as a kid scanning around the AM band late at night and picking up far away stations from exotic locales such as St. Louis (I'm in Chicago) and being amazed. Something from St. Louis was making its way into my bedroom! When a buddy of mine got a shortwave radio my mind was completely blown.

Fast forward to my college days when Internet radio started to become popular and I thought it was cool to listen to college stations from remote areas, but it was never very exciting to me. Since then I had a series of AVRs with horrible tuners and never got into FM, aside from a great local college station. After I picked up a serviced MR74 2 years ago or so the magic returned. I was picking up fringe stations in the 88-92 band and discovering all sorts of interesting content. Finely tuning the station in via the analog knob made it seem like I was contributing to the magic of pulling these stations in.

The MR74 is in storage and I've got the excellent MR88, which kind of removes a little magic with its digital tuning, but I still get fascinated by scanning that lower band and seeing what I can find. I need to mount the AM antenna and see what I can find with that. I don't know why, but it's so much more satisfying to tune in a station with my MR88 than it is to just listen to an online stream. I'm not sure what my point here is, but does anyone feel the same magic with their tuner(s)? They're just FUN and that's what this hobby is all about! :music:

I have an MR85 in Florida, and the MR88 in Cape Cod. For some reason I use and really enjoy my MR88 a lot.

The MR85 barely sees any use. :dunno:

I have had an MR78 with the MPI4 scope since 1973, and I used to use them a lot. I have always had a large antenna on a rotator (not the same antenna and rotator I have now as I have moved a few times since then) and it was great DXing. I used to stay up to all hours of the morning looking to see how distant a station I could pick up.

The reason I hardly use it now is FM RADIO POSITIVELY SUCKS THESE DAYS.

The signals are all over-modulated and compressed, and the rap-crap, hip hop, loud lousy so called musical program material is absolutely unlistenable.

The only show I listen to regularly on FM is the NPR program, "Car Talk"--and that isn't even music!

When one of my friends and I were in high school, we had an underground FM radio station.

I think the analog-like display helps a lot with the MR88. To me there's something more satisfying about that type of display and the flywheel. I don't actually have any presets on my MR88, I always just spin the dial to get where I want to be. I think it's that interactive feel that adds something to it as well. Kind of like the interaction of playing an LP vs clicking an mp3/FLAC.

I can definitely understand that. There's one Clear Channel station I listen to here and that is only because Dick Biondi is on it at night. The rest of my listening is on the public radio band. Years ago when I was in California all the time I found a channel that was almost exclusively surf music in that public band. We briefly had an AM oldies station in Chicago a few years back that I'd tune into. When I travel the barren Midwest for work, I rarely find any FM worth tuning into.

It's kind of ironic, now, in the middle of nowhere you can get XM and Sirius perfectly well, but go under a bunch of trees in the suburbs or be in a big city, and the signal gets interrupted.

Last night I decided to play around with AM on the MR88 and was able to pull in an AM station from Toronto with a crystal clear signal (I'm in Chicago). It was one of those magic tuner moments. Of course the great signal lasted only about an hour until I assume weather affected it, but it was still cool to pick that channel up. The AM reception on the MR88 is pretty top notch.

Steve.......Back in the 70's I work for a small 5000 watt AM radio station, KOHI in St. Helens, Oregon. It was my first full time on-air gig out of college. One day a post card arrived from Sidney, Australia. The card was an acknowledgment that the sender had heard our station on the air in Sidney. He state the time of day, noted my name as the on-air personality, and mentioned several commercials that were aired. I remember checking the stations daily log from the date mentioned, and sure enough we logged the two commercials he said he heard at the time he indicated. He was a DX'er, and enjoyed tuning the radio dial to see how far away he could hear a broadcast, then sending cards to let the stations know. That was his hobby. I was amazed that our little 5000 watt signal skipped off the upper atmosphere and bounced down half way around the world in Sidney, Australia. The station manager kept the DX post card. I sure wish I had it. I sent a short note to the DX'er on our station letterhead letting him know we received his post card.

I like to search the radio dial, too. Late night DXing is fun. The clear channel stations on AM come in good at night from all over the country. I have listened to KSL in Salt Lake, Utah, KSF in San Francisco, and WABC in New York on my radio while in Florida. Amazing. I even caught the short wave and long wave bug, and have two tuners, a world band radio and a UHF/VHF radio, connected to roof top antennas that let me hear broadcasts from all over the world. A few nights ago I was listening to an English broadcast I enjoy from Radio Havana Cuba, and another English speaking news cast from China Radio broadcast from Beijing. Lots of fun.

Funny, i live near StL, and used to tune in Chicago stations.

Even funnier; StL referenced as an 'exotic locale' :)

As a kid, I received one of these for a Christmas present. The radio was a lot of fun.

http://images.craigslist.org/5Ie5H95...edd13917c1.jpg

FM radio in the early 60's and into the 70's was a great experience. San Francisco was the epicenter with KSFR, KPEN, KJAZ and then later KSAN. A good tuner made a big difference. Those days are now gone, will never return, and IMO FM now sucks. XM in the car is about as good as it gets today.