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advice for a good antenna

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pinopradino

New Member
Hi guys, nice to meet you, this is my first time posting here, even if I really like to follow and read the forum.
I'm from Italy, and I'd like to ask your help for choosing a good antenna for my mcintosh mr78. Reading in many threads, the best choice should be the Magnum Dynalab ST2, but I live in an apartment on the second floor (of three floors) and I'm unable to use an outdoor antenna. So I've putted my eyes on 2 other indoor antennas, the Magnum Dynalab SR100 and the Godar FM1A. Actually I'm using a simple dipole payed few euros, and stations are a little disturbed (just a little). So, which one you would buy?
 
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FM Antennas

FM Antennas are pretty easy to make yourself. FM is an abbreviation for Frequency Modulation so any antenna will need a little thought. Go on Internet and search for FM Antennas. I am not familiar with the frequency band used in Italy or Europe, but you will need to know the frequency at the middle of the band and then you will "tune" your antenna by how long the antenna wire itself. It will be some fraction of the wavelength. The wire can be very small in gage or diameter and can be easily hidden behind curtains, pictures or colored like the wall itself. My experience with antennas sold in stores or shops is that they are usually not effective.

Search for "FM Dipole Antenna" and you will see many examples. I once saw an antenna made with aluminum tape on a glass window that appeared to be part of a security system. There are a lot of possibilities
 
The antenna that 59volvo recommended is an excellent choice. It is called a folded dipole.

If you have access to TV twinlead you should use it, especially for the downlead part of the antenna. It matches the impedance of the horizontal part (the actual folded dipole).
 
i'm using old stand alone rabbit ears, the kind for old tv's using the vhf leads. it/they work very very good for my location.
 
Thanks guys, then I bought a Magnum Dynalab SR100 and I had improvements. But I'm going to give a look to that project, it seems to be very interesting!
 
I used an existing piece of home decor, a metal wire bowl on a stand.......hooked it to 10 inches of spare lamp cord and put on the half wall behind my receiver.

I now pull an ungodly number of clean signals compared to rabbit ears. Here is a bad pic, but you get the idea.
 

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jhenry, did you simply connect one single piece of wire to the bowl? I think I have something like that laying around.
 
onwardjames said:
jhenry, did you simply connect one single piece of wire to the bowl? I think I have something like that laying around.
Click to expand...

......to the metal stand the metal bowl sits on, one lead to each side of the base, leads to 75 and 300 OHM terminals on the Lafayette. Simple, free, effective
 
If you have a non-digital TV antenna on the roof, you can purchase a splitter so you can take your FM signal off the rooftop antenna. The splitter gives you another tap to attach to a second device. Then it is simply a matter of connecting the length of coaxil cable to the tuner. If it has a 75 Ohm input, it will look like the ends you have on the splitter, you can just attach the coaxial to the reciever. If you have just 2 screw terminals, you will need a Balun to match the coax to the reciever. If Italy went to a digital TV broadcast format, the rooftop antenna will not work well for you unless the TV antenna is for the old broadcast format.
 
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