How to improve the reception of a telescoping antenna?

[Brett a]

The boom box in my kitchen pulls in FM only well enough to play in mono, and is still scratchy. It's just ok enough to be listenable.
Is there anything i can do to pull in a better signal? It just has a single telescoping antenna-standard chrome issue.
Thanks :thmbsp:
BTW, I've played with placement/angles, etc.

[ponderbear]

The issue with FM is usually just to get highter. Seems like you could mount an outboard antenna near the ceiling and clip its feed wire to your antenna and get some improvement.

[catman]

Good morning, there is a bit of a trick to optimising a typical telescopic whip antenna on FM. An antenna of this type is most effective when the receiver 'sees' a 'quarter wave length' from the antenna on the listening frequency (low impedance and maximised signal power transfer).

As I've personally seen often a telescopic whip that is fully extended is often actually too long. It is a simple matter of slightly reducing the physical length and listening for a decrease in signal hiss (indicative of a stronger signal). This really does work. There is a limit to the improvement possible, but considerable improvement is quite possible. Regards, catman (vk4fuq).

[Brian]

Try it extended to about 30". Ever notice the length of a fixed length auto antenna, one that is not loaded in some fashion.

[Paul C]

98 mhz, in the middle of the FM band, a quarter wave is 28.65".

1/4 wave of 88 mhz = 31.9"

1/4 wave of 108 mhz = 26"