• The move to the new server is done. There are some software and database maintenance updates in process. This has us passing the hat around to help out. We appreciate any donations. Seriously, even a dollar helps. The payment page may be found here - https://www.audiokarma.org/support.html

New FM antenna

Register to hide this ad
I also purchased this antenna and use it inside because of condo rules. In my location it works only marginally better than the simple dipole I used before. And whenever I move it toward a window or wall reception degrades. I have it in a closet away from the wall. All in all I was disappointed. I'm glad it's working well for you.
 
That's interesting - mine is very close to a wall, and works much better for me than a simple wire dipole, rabbit ears, or a BIC Beam Box. I wonder if your building has a metal frame?
 
I have been seeing those for a while and wondered if they were any good. It would be nice to hear from anyone else who has tried one.
 
RichPA said:
I wonder if your building has a metal frame?
Click to expand...

No it doesn't. But I am connected to another condo to the East - the direction of my favorite FM stations. My outside walls face North and South. I'm not really sure if this is the problem.
 
hey!, I have one of these, too! On the chimney!

and the FM reception is fabulous!!! Such a simple design and I wish I went with it before I spend all that time and money screwing around with motorized crap
 
RichPA said:
Just got one of these: http://www.fmdxantenna.com/proddetail.php?prod=FMDipUS

Nothing fancy, but it works very well. I've got it set up indoors; the mounting bracket is heavy enough so that it balances on the back of a shelf. Come spring I may get ambitious enough to mount it outdoors.
Click to expand...

Hi Rich...Do you have this actually behind your shelf/rack? This antenna seems awfully long....anyway you can supply pics on how you set this up?
Thanks in advance
 
archie2 said:
What kind of range are you getting?
Click to expand...

I live on the side of a hill, in a valley-within-a-valley, so I'm not getting anything outside the larger valley, but I am getting everything here clearly. Right now it's connected to my best-sounding tuner (a Punker-X modded Sony ES), but not my best DX-ing tuner (a Pioneer TX-9500, also Punker-X modded) - I'll try that one tomorrow.
 
'cisco said:
Hi Rich...Do you have this actually behind your shelf/rack? This antenna seems awfully long....anyway you can supply pics on how you set this up?
Thanks in advance
Click to expand...

Yes, it's actually behind the rack - I'll try to get a good pic of the setup tomorrow.
 
As promised, a couple of pics (sorry about the flash in the 2nd one). Not the greatest, but they should give you a sense of it scale relative to the rack and gear (which, as you can probably tell by the mess, is not the living room setup).
 

Attachments

  • antenna1.jpg
    antenna1.jpg
    95.8 KB · Views: 367
  • antenna2.jpg
    antenna2.jpg
    85.6 KB · Views: 294
Another satisfied customer ...

During home remodeling a year ago I attached it running horizontally hanging in a North-South orientation from my house's ridge beam. The house is narrow one story rancher with a miserable 4:12 roof, so there wasn't even 4' of vertical space anywhere in the attic -- and WAF forbade external placement.

The several stations I care about (most < 91MHz) all come in well on my CR-2020 receiver -- the local Pacifica station (89.3), which features great blues and jazz on Saturday afternoon, pegs the meter strength needle. I can also now get WRNR, 103.1 in Grasonville, MD (other side of the Chesapeake Bay from me) in decent stereo.

-- Steve A.
 
Rich...thanks for the pics :thmbsp:

Somehow it looks smaller in your set-up than the manufacture's website....which is a good thing. Sorry to ask you another favor...can you measure it from tip to tip? Looks like 6 ft.?

I live in a townhouse/condo complex which doesn't allow for any external stuff of any kind and this might do the trick. I'm looking for something better than the make-shift speaker wire I'm using now...been thinking about the Terk stuff thought.

once again....thanks :yes:
 
Last edited:
'cisco said:
Rich...thanks for the pics :thmbsp:

Somehow it looks smaller in your set-up than the manufacture's website....which is a good thing. Sorry to ask you another favor...can you measure it from tip to tip? Looks like 6 ft.?

I live in a townhouse/condo complex which doesn't allow for any external stuff of any kind and this might do the trick. I'm looking for something better than the make-shift speaker wire I'm using now...been thinking about the Terk stuff thought.

once again....thanks :yes:
Click to expand...

The site says 69" tip to tip. I thought it was much larger too.
 
RichPA said:
As promised, a couple of pics (sorry about the flash in the 2nd one). Not the greatest, but they should give you a sense of it scale relative to the rack and gear (which, as you can probably tell by the mess, is not the living room setup).
Click to expand...

Thanks for the pics, Rich. I might have to snag one of these. The BIC beam box I have now works great. For the money it would definitely be worth trying to get some improvement all the more.

Should go great with your sherwood 2400/ I just finished the alignment yesterday. Its pretty picky about stations now! Just waiting for a few more caps and it'll be done!
 
Cool, Jordan, I'm looking forward to it!

and 'cisco, I measure it at about 67" tip-to-tip; there is a bit of leeway in how far you insert the antenna sections into the middle piece, though, so 69" is not unreasonable.
 
I have this antenna also, and it wasn't that great until I put it in the attic and moved it around a bit, stopping at a horizontal plane facing west. Excellent reception now! Most stations are 4.5 on a scale of 5 on the meter. This is a pretty crappy reception area even though it's in the city. We have a lot of trouble with cellular service also, so in my opinion this antenna works pretty well!
 
DX?????? there is NO way that is a DX antenna, it is a dipole

and can not perform any better indoors than a DIY item of the same dimensions - and made from TV twin-wire ribbon and mounted on a board on a lazy susan turnstile.

It might have slightly greater surface area and thus might have a teeny-tiny bit more gain (<0.1db so who cares) and its resonant frequency would be the same.

DX stands for 'distance reception' an RF term for receiving - clearly - at distances that are unusual for the RF technology involved. IE with FM for FM stations up to hundreds of km's away.

A DX antenna for FM is usually a stacked array of several large matching FM antennas each of which has a long boom and lots of elements and a powerful rotator.

If you - really - can't have an outdoor directional FM beam antenna and rotator, and only a handful or less stations you bother with, a rhombic wire antenna or two, is a serious solution. And they are cheap to do!

FM front ends need two things for the music to sound good, a strong signal that fully limits the front end (an antenna with gain) and low multipath. A directional antenna will provide both.

tim bailey
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom