Radio reception question

Good point. Antenna length of AM is very poor in cars, which had traditionally GREAT receivers with POOR antennas. Bear in mind that the low end of the band, approx 500 kcs, er excuse me HERTZ is a 3:1 frequency / wavelength change compared to the high end

Coupled with the low frequencies, where a good performing antenna would be quite long, and this 3:1 change, it is nearly a miracle "back in the days" that we got the reception we did. I can remember late night weekends when (in the Spokane area) it was a "big thing" to be able to receive KJR from Seattle. There also was a popular station in Canada, but I now longer remember the callsign.

And sometimes you could receive San Francisco and other "far off" stuff. This could be GREATLY improved by careful selection of the parking area (LOL) and of course turning the engine off.

Yup. Antenna trimmers. I've forgotten, found one post that says to adjust them down around 6-700 KHz, but I don't remember. Our "favorite station" back then was 790/ KNEW, later KJRB (sister to KJR) so I always set mine there on 790

Car radios would have been MUCH better performers if the trimmer had been a dashboard control. They make a tremendous difference in performance.

A friend of mine scored a big 'ol CB whip (102") which he hooked to his AM radio, and that thing REALLY worked!!!!

(You "new guys" have to understand, that where I grew up as a kid, there WERE no FM stations we could receive, 4 track tapes had barely been introduced, and the "fad" was those awful "reverb" units)