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antenna question...

S

scale21

Active Member
this might be kind of a newbie question but what alternatives exist for fm antennas? Back in the day i would just screw on my fm antenna to my reciever and run it up the wall and tack it there. Then i would throw a poster over it so you couldnt see it.

IF i didnt have an antenna specific cable i would just screw on a length of speaker wire and do the same thing so i could get reception.

There has to be a way or new technology to not have to have that cable running up the wall :)

Where my stereo stuff is located now....there is NO coax or RG6 ran and i dont have any sort of mast antenna on my house.

Any tricks here?
 
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Where I live some of the stations I like to listen to don't come in strong enough and so I resorted to an amplified indoor antenna which, with amplification turned on, works great!
 
i have a radio shack powered FM antanea, seems to work well.

on another setup, i'm using a length of speaker wire, and that works good too
 
I tried different solution for a good antenna (Fm reception) and I found that your basic 1/2 wave dipole mounted on the roof brings the strongest signal. I'm in Central NJ and pull the NY FM stations clear and strong with my current antenna (1/2 wave dipole with a coax cable running from the roof to the basement where the tuner is)
 
Simplest, which I find as effective as the little twinlead dipole (T-shaped antenna) is a 58" wire connected to either of the 300 ohm terminals, or the 75 ohm terminal. OK for stations out to 40-60 miles or so.

Next up, and this works very well, I used a roll of 22 ga stranded insulated hookup wire. I hooked that to one of the 300 ohm terminals of an Onkyo TX-866 receiver (bedroom system), ran it outside through the window, up to the edge of the roof. From there I ran it along the edge of the roof using little plastic Christmas light hooks. Along the edge of the roof, around the corner and another 10' or so along the other edge of the roof. Altogether, about 30' of wire. And this works VERY well! A number of area stations out to 60-70 miles read from 80%-100% on the signal meter. Then again, my receiver has Murata low loss filters replacing the originals. I get all but a few of the stations I can receive with my living room system.

I think the right angle turn is important in getting it omnidirectional. I did a similar thing out in my shop, but just ran it in one direction. There are two stations I can receive well with the bedroom system that I can't pick up at all with the shop system. Those stations are both in the same city about 70 miles away.

For my main system I have a 5' mast mounted on the peak of the roof with an Antennacraft FM6 yagi (aka "the Radio Shack $25 antenna"). A balun, or transformer connects the antenna to a 50' run of RG6 to my living room. This works VERY well. I get stations out past 100 miles. This tuner, an Onkyo T-4500, has Murata low loss filters, too. I get over 60 clean, listenable stereo stations. Unfortunatately a number of them are country, urban hip-hop, or other less than enjoyable stations. But there are a number of good classic rock, adult contempory, and jazz stations that I enjoy.
 
A pair of rabbit ears, about 1/3 wavelength of 100 MHz.

Works well for local broadcasts.

If you can swing it, a 1/2 wave dipole made up of 1/2" copper pipe would work exceptionally in the roof.
 
If a indoor antenna is what you are looking for, these BIC Beam Box directional units are cool. :thmbsp:
 

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I just recently installed a Magnum Dynalab ST-2 inside my attic with a 60' single run of RG-6 Quad Sheild coax (Home Depot) to the McIntosh MR-85 tuner. My house is a single floor ranch and it's about 2 feet higher than anything else on my street. One station about 60-70 miles away isn't coming in very strong because the antenna has the house' incoming electric, satelite TV and telephone wires are in the way. But it was the only place to put the antenna. Overall it's working great. The coax has about 10-15' of slack so I may just take that out at the tuner's end and put on a new F-connector.:blah:

A long time ago I used to use a Realistic FM Amplifier and while it did a good job of picking up the local stations, for some reason it also blocked out the distant ones.:screwy:
 
kermit z said:
On my Sony Receiver I just run the half speaker cable on it and works fine.
Click to expand...

which connector do you screw it to? there are like 5 screws for FM on the back of my newly acquired STR-V5

there are 2 FM300 screws and 1 FM75, the FM75 looks like it also has a hold down screw for a wire

i use the top left screw to ground my turntable, because i can't use the push button one as my TT has a little c-hook on the end of it.

i use the bottom right screw "FM75" as my fm antenna (just an insulated copper wire).

is that ok?
 

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brucered said:
which connector do you screw it to? there are like 5 screws for FM on the back of my newly acquired STR-V5

there are 2 FM300 screws and 1 FM75, the FM75 looks like it also has a hold down screw for a wire

i use the top left screw to ground my turntable, because i can't use the push button one as my TT has a little c-hook on the end of it.

i use the bottom right screw "FM75" as my fm antenna (just an insulated copper wire).

is that ok?
Click to expand...

That looks right to me. That is basically how mine is hooked up and it works good:thmbsp:

CIMG0963.jpg
 
I have an antenna in the attic of my home that I set up to pull in the local HD television stations. I put a splitter on the cable and ran a cable to the receiver in my main system. Works great for FM reception and is very discreet.
 
I always had fair luck with the little T, but the recently acquired powered Radio Shack rabbit ears are very, very good!

Don:music:
 
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You can use the ground connection on the upper left for both your turntable ground AND for one of the connections to a loop antenna. You will find that the ground terminal, where you have your turntable groundwire now, as well as the cable clamp, are both chassis ground. You could do the same electrically with any other screw touching the chassis, such as one of the cover screws.

See these threads about AM loops.

http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=64918&page=3&pp=15

http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=125817 One fellow on this thread has a noise problem in his area that nothing is going to fix, but for most of us, a simple loop will give excellent AM. If you don't want to make one, check out the Select-a-tenna or Terk.

Your cable connection is similar to this one.

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The braided shield is folded back over the outside of the cable, and the clamp secures the cable and makes the ground connection at the same time. The center conductor goes to the 75 ohm screw.

The two marked 300 are for attachment to good old fashioned twinlead.
 

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so should i run my make shift copper wire antenna thru where you have the RED line drawn on it.

also, am i better off using a COAXIAL cable (i'm guessing standard tv coaxial cable is fine), instead of my copper wire?

thanks, this is all very helpful to a newbie to vintage receivers.
 
so should i run my make shift copper wire antenna thru where you have the RED line drawn on it.

No. Not unless it is coax.

also, am i better off using a COAXIAL cable (i'm guessing standard tv coaxial cable is fine), instead of my copper wire?

Maybe, maybe not. For those "longwire" FM antennae on two of my systems I am using just wire. Nothing else.

But I am using coax on my main system. The longer the run, the more you need coax.
 
I use a Terk FM - have to mount it as shown (not ideal), but it's such a good unit it still helps my Sony STR-7800SD pull in a lot of full strength FM stations - even though I really do live in a bad reception area and a rooftop aerial would be infinitely better. We are selling our house so I won't invest in any 'construction' that I'll end up leaving behind when we move...

here's a review
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-4EDvBtQUVPH/App/Product/Item/Main.aspx?i=209FMPRO
 

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I have an old Terk amplified antenna looking for a home. They were the thing 15-20 years ago.

It didn't work well enough for me. I ended up using a TV antenna. (ALL TV ANTENNAS INCLUDE FM, it is between channel 6 and channel 7 of the current analog broadcasts)

And someone should mention that ALL antennas have reception patterns. Yes, even a dipole or a poece of wire strung vertically or horizontally.
 
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