Length of rabbit ears matter?

[Zygmo]

I am dreading some of the answers I will get on this, but anyway.......

I have just now setup a little rackmount system that has an FM tuner, and am listening to an in-home radio for the first time in years! It seems like I read some years ago that those pull-up antennas cars used to have worked best if pulled up a certain length. Is this also true when using rabbit ears for fm radio? And I know that the higher you set the actual antenna, the better it works, and with further reach.

I have it attached to the rackmount, and can orient it in any direction which makes obvious differences, of course. The ears are about 3 feet long when fully extended.

 

[I LIKE MUSIC]

It is all about the RF field strength and quality of the signal that the antenna captures.

For signals that are moderate to strong, you may not notice much of a difference. For weaker signals, for a number of technical reasons it may make a noticeable difference.

Total dipole length in feet: 468 / frequency in MHz, total dipole length in meters: 143 / frequency in MHz. For each element divide by 2.

This will get you in the ballpark in terms of element length, feel free to experiment. Changing the length and or angle between the elements may make a difference when trying to receive weaker signals and or trying to null out interference.

 

[avionic]

It matters to the rabbit.

 

[Pio1980]

It affects tuning range, there is an optimum length for the FM band that can be further optimised by length for a desired portion of the band. Adjust the long parts for best results.

 

[Guest125]

I am dreading some of the answers I will get on this, but anyway.......

I have just now setup a little rackmount system that has an FM tuner, and am listening to an in-home radio for the first time in years! It seems like I read some years ago that those pull-up antennas cars used to have worked best if pulled up a certain length. Is this also true when using rabbit ears for fm radio? And I know that the higher you set the actual antenna, the better it works, and with further reach.

I have it attached to the rackmount, and can orient it in any direction which makes obvious differences, of course. The ears are about 3 feet long when fully extended.

This is going to greatly depend on your location, distance from transmitters and direction, selectivity for desired distant stations if required. Urban areas can introduce multi-path reflections. If you seem to get a good signal for all the stations you are currently seeking to listen to, then a simple dipole can do a great job for you. Also, if you have 300 ohm connector on your receiver, you can just get a length of small gauge speaker cable and make a T with the top legs 30" per side and pin it up on the wall.

https://www.electronics-notes.com/articles/antennas-propagation/dipole-antenna/fm-dipole-antenna.php

 

[bimasta]

Maybe everyone knows this already.... I use rabbit-ears indoors too, and there's a website — radio-locator.com — that shows where each transmitter in your area is located. In my area, there are 3 at widely different points of the compass. If I aim my rabbit-ear broadside at each transmitter when tuning to its station, it improves reception considerably.

 

[Drugolf]

how about a yes, no, or as big as you can get.

 

[Pio1980]

For long distance reception, a vhf Yagi array, as high as possible on a rotation mount.