J&D Schnoor wrote:

I have a friend who wants to listen to two particular medium wave AM
broadcast stations. I entered the coordinates of his apartment building
into the FCC webpage and then the frequency for each station.

The first station is KDHL 920 kHz AM in Faribault MN. It appears as if he
is almost 40 miles away from the station transmitting 5 kW daytime and
nightime. I haven't found out anything about their antenna patterns,
however.

The other station is KCHK 1350 kHz AM in New Prague MN. It looks like they
are about 20 miles from that station transmitting 500 watts
daytime, but only 70 watts at night! I don't know anything about their
antenna patterns either.

snip

You should have some success with the right antenna to deal with any locally
generated noise; I would suggest using an auto radio known for good
AM sensitivity powered by an adequate 12 volt supply. Recently I found
that a Sony CDX-110 (Xplode) radio/cd-player worked very well indoors
in my hostile RFI environment with just a three-foot whip to receive
830 WCCO from Mpls here in Duluth during the day (night is always much
easier); no other radio I have including well-regarded communications
receivers worked as well. Many auto radios have better sensitivity,
noise limiters and AGCs than most table radios. You may need to consider
using a magnetic loop antenna to null local interference, but it is
worth trying a longwire first.

The topography around Faribault and New Prague is pretty flat so unless
you have a lot of tall pines to deal with nearby, ground wave shouldn't
be much impacted. I doubt that at those distances antenna patterns
would make much difference, since those stations serve farm markets
that cover the majority of that part of the state.

If for whatever reason you don't solve this problem with radio, you
might convince someone in either town to relay broadcasts as a VoIP
call over the Internet to a computer in your friend's apartment.

Regards,

Michael