Can I use 2 dipoles at same time?

[winegasman]

I need FM antenna help. I just started listening to FM again after many years without a tuner. I live in a small town in southwest NH, outside of Keene. There are 2 main stations I'm trying to listen to – 88.1 out of Vermont and 99.5 out of Boston. I'm restricted to using an indoor antenna, and have no access to the attic so I need to have the antenna in the room (living room).

I hooked a basic dipole antenna to the tuner and discovered that to get the 99.5 signal best I have to orient the antenna on a straight north-south axis. But this minimizes the signal strength for 88.1. To get 88.1 best, the axis is straight east-west. I'm wondering what happens if I mount a second dipole antenna (one oriented east-west, the other oriented north-south) and run both into the same 300ohm tuner connection? Will that solve the problem? Or is there a better antenna for this situation? Thanks.

[merrylander]

That is basically what a 'turnstile' FM antenna is, I have one in the garage attic and it is essentially omni-directional. Just checked the ARRL Handbook to see if it had a connection diagram but no luck. Then again omni-directional is hardly what a ham would want. Maybe Wiki?

[Brian]

Just connect them to a switch to switch between the 2.

[winegasman]

What kind of switch? Sorry for the simple questions but with radio I'm a definite noob.

[bolly]

winegasman, believe it or not, I have dipole on 300ohm, and wire on the 75ohm... it works better than each one individually. :dunno:

[winegasman]

bolly, that sounds interesting -- how log is the wire for the 75ohm connection? and where do you mount it? Thanks.

[bolly]

I have the twin-wire tied to a stick, ran outside, and flung up over the roof! :cool:

[Brian]

Double pole double throw would work.

[winegasman]

Sorry guys but I don't know what a double pole double throw is. And it sure doesn't sound like it goes indoors!

[Brian]

Hit the local Radio Shack or such. It is a simple switch. One pair of terminals goes 1 antenna, one another, the other antenna and on the last a run to the antenna terminals of the tuner/receiver. Flip the switch in 1 direction and it will connect 1 antenna, flip it in the other and it will connect the other. This was very common in the olden days. Back then we'd use a big switch called a knife switch. Some times you can see these on sci-fi movies, as Igor flips the power.

[catrafter]

The Antennacraft FMSS (http://www.antennacraft.net/FM.html) is a nice, cheap turnstile antenna. It may be a bit large for the living room, though.

Tom

[High_Current]

Sorry guys but I don't know what a double pole double throw is. And it sure doesn't sound like it goes indoors!

A four way light switch can be had pretty cheaply (Home Cheapo, etc) but Rat Shack probably has a smaller version (DPDT switch).

[jhoyt]

About the 300 ohm and 75 ohm terminals, I believe they are paralleled, with the 300 ohm terminals having a series balun to convert to 75 ohm.

Also, I use a cheap composite video signal multiplexer for antenna routing. With mine I can use 4 tuners with 4 different antennas.