Hey there...just purchased a Sansui Tu-919 to go with my AU-919, and I'm trying to figure out my best antenna option...the good news is that I am less than 3 miles from the major Philly antenna farm...the bad news is that my listening room is in the basement of a 70-year old house. I certainly do not think I need a big ol' yagi on my roof to pick up signals from 3 miles away, but I still want to get a quality signal...given my modest needs, would a simple whip antenna (like the Magnum Dynalab ST-2 or Fanfare equivalent) do the job? Are there any other options for an outdoor antenna between an ST-2 on the side of the house (outside my basement window) and a full-blown yagi on the roof? Or would a decent indoor antenna get the job done?

Thanks!

Antennas in the basement suck, plain and simple. Since you've got the option, go outside rooftop.

Either of these will more than suffice. One is a directional yagi and the other is an omni. Take yer pick.

http://www.antennacraft.net/FM.htm

RatShak used to sell these but dunno about nowadays.

Any chance you could put a T-wire close to a window?
If you're only 3 miles away, there should be some stations you could get in stereo with NO antenna.

MarkW:

Do I really need a full-blown rooftop yagi to get a decent FM signal from towers that I can see from my house?

MarkW:

Do I really need a full-blown rooftop yagi to get a decent FM signal from towers that I can see from my house?It's fairly small as far as yagis go.

But, if you're that close and only want to drive one tuner, then perhaps a cheapo "T" wire antenna stuck on a piece of wood and mounted outside might suffice.

That omni turnstile might do you just fine if you don't have multipath problems. If multipath is an issue, then a directional yagi might be useful.

I'm right outside of NYC and with a TV antenna pointed at NYC I get a heckuva lot of stations but with that little (RatShak) turnstile ommi, I get a lot more from other directions as well.

and, FWIW, either comes in at a whole lot less $$ (< $30) than those options you mentioned, which is what you asked for. If you really want the high-priced spread, have at it and enjoy, but don't expect better performance.

Given my druthers, if I were in your position I'd opt for the little turnstile omni. You get the best of both worlds.

OK, FWIW... for all the guys pushing "longwire" for AM (which I find do not work as well as loops), I have a 50' wire going outside, just a spool of 22 ga hookup wire, for SW on my Grundig radio. I found it also worked well for FM on the same radio, with no effect on AM.

So, I needed an outside antenna for my shop system. I got another spool of the same 22 ga hookup wire, connected it to one of the (Onkyo TX-906) receiver's 300 ohm terminals, out the window, and simply hung it along the edge of the roof of the shop with some little plastic Christmas light hooks. Used about 15' of wire for that. Works pretty darn well!

So, I had the 60" wire (half wave) hooked to my bedroom receiver (Onkyo TX-866). Removed that, hooked up more wire from the same spool I used for the shop receiver, out the window, up to the edge of the roof, down along that side, around the corner, and along another side. Altogether about 25'-30'. And THAT works very well!

I am getting stations in the 40-70 mile range very clearly, meter pegging out for many stations.

You just can't get simpler than that.

How about a J-pole mounted on a wooden stick, stuck in the ground just outside behind some shrubs or something? As long as the j-pole is not touching the ground (it's mounted to the stick) it should work nicely and your at ground level with the antenna.

You could always take Paul C's suggestion, and if you needed to, it could be hidden behind vinyl siding rather easily. YD

I had looked at a site on J-poles where the stub of the J-pole was clamped to the mast rod with ordinary hose clamps. I emailed the author and asked, shouldn't that be insulated? He replied, no, that the stub on the bottom of the J-pole is electrically at 0v, and in fact grounding it is good.

http://www.hamuniverse.com/jpole.html

Even better! Thanks for the info, YD

We had an old Hitachi quad system and all it used for an antenna was a metal clip about an inch long that went over the line cord in a U shape and had a tab that connected to the 75 ohn antenna screw. Worked like a charm.