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FM Indoor Antennas Suggestions?

realjimjim

realjimjim

Well-Known Member
After reading the FM Car thread here I was wondering: What is a good AM/FM indoor antenna for my system?

I live in the middle of nowhere and there is absolutely nothing wrong with my receivers (Pioneer SX-1050 Restored by PunkerX and SX-1280 Restored by Avionic).

I don't listen to the radio very often but it would be nice if I could if the mood struck me.

Thanks for any ideas/suggestions.
 
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Manum Dynalab makes one that can be used indoors and outdoors. But I found it to be very finicky about where it was placed. You either had a usable signal or not. Avoid the Godar antennas, unless you live in a very strong signal area. Oddly enough, I found I got my best result by using 5' of 20 gauge wire. A five foot section of wire will tune it to the lower to middle part of the FM band.
You may want to try experimenting with that first, connecting it to the 75 ohm tap.
 
You have several options depending on how much you want to spend.

Cheap (under $10):
- Simple dipole.

Inexpensive (under $50):
- BIC FM-10 or FM-8, which is basically nothing more than a simple dipole that you can "tune" and it looks better than a dipole tacked up to the wall.
- "Rabbit ear" type antenna from any number of brands.

Moderate (about $100):
- Magnum Dynalab ST2

I haven't used the Dynalab ST2 but have heard good things about it. Aside from that, I think you'll have the best results with "rabbit ears" but it does look ugly which is why I ended up using a BIC FM-10.
 
I just got this a few weeks ago. Works great for me. It replaced my aging omni outdoor ant. Got to where it would not pick up NPR anymore.

This Terk FM 50 Pro, brings it and alot more stations right on in. Shop around. I got mine for $61 plus $10 shipping. I saw a high of $120 and free shipping, plus everything in between.

You can mount this out doors or in an attic too.
 

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How far are the stations you wish to hear? How powerful are their signals? Do you have mountains, valleys, or ridges between them? These questions will dictate your choices in antennas. Do you have strong adjacent stations to deal with?
 
KentTeffeteller said:
How far are the stations you wish to hear? How powerful are their signals? Do you have mountains, valleys, or ridges between them? These questions will dictate your choices in antennas. Do you have strong adjacent stations to deal with?
Click to expand...

The nearest stations are about 75 miles from me, in all four directions. No mountains, just small hilly ground.

I don't understand the adjacent stations question. There is nothing around or near me but farms and feilds.
 
realjimjim said:
The nearest stations are about 75 miles from me, in all four directions. No mountains, just small hilly ground.

I don't understand the adjacent stations question. There is nothing around or near me but farms and feilds.
Click to expand...

If there is one station at 97.5 and one at 97.7 they would be adjacent stations. This usually isn't a problem in urban areas. The FCC makes shure of this. If you're in the burbs it can be a problem because you may have a 97.5 in one direction and a 97.7 in another.

The entire FM band is between the NTSC (analog) TV channels 6 and 7 frequency wise.
 
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If the rabbit ears are terminated with "twin lead" flat wire, use the 300 ohm taps.
I've seen a few that were terminated with coax. Use the 75 ohm taps of F connector for that.
You mentioned AM in the first post. Unless the tuner/receiver has a ferrite bar antenna attached to it, the only thing I can think of that'll work well is 50' or more of longwire. The lower the frequency, the longer the wire required.
 
If you're up for a bit of diy adventure you could look into constructing a j-pole antenna...

http://www.hamuniverse.com/jpole.html

I live in an "fm black hole" and I built myself one tuned to midband fm with amazing results. Do a search on this board and you will find several threads addressing these great antennas:thmbsp:

J.R.
 
I got an RCA $10 bunny ear antenna from Best Buy that works really well, very simple unpowered and small footprint. I use it for TV, but it works well for FM too. For my receivers I usually just use speaker wire, but the $10 bunny ear antenna works better then my speaker wire antennas do.
 
I use both bunny ears and folded dipole antennas, one design of which is a bit like bunny ears only with stainless strips folded back on themselves. I'll if I can find the name of them on the base of one of them. They work fine and take up less space than bunny ears, much easier to rotate in the direction of a signal in a restricted space.
 
I get good results using a RS rabbit ear type made specifically for FM, that is amplified. I don't listen to AM.
 
A simple powered FM antenna has always served me well. Just bought a 2nd one on fleabay after reading this thread. I think they were about $25 when new, $10 to $15 now. Has a tuning stub on the front. I don't know if the dust helps reception or not!
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On the back of my NAD I have a piece of coax hooked up that runs to an adapter that then connects to the rabbit ears. Works pretty well.

I also have a Technics tuner and to that I have just used speaker wire which tees into a five foot section. That also works well. I plan on using the speaker wire when I get a tuner for my son as well. It gets hooked to 75 ohm unbalanced.
 
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