Home made FM Antenna..

Valvetype

Valvetype

Active Member
G'day friends..
I'd like to make a simple FM radio antenna.We get pretty good reception here so I don't suppose anything that powerfull would be needed...or would I be better off just buying one of those Ribbon Di-pole (?) jobs....or making one.
Thanks and regards from Australia... Charlie.
 
G'day mate, I've built several of these simple two element FM yagi's with excellent results. Recommended! Regards, Felix (vk4fuq) aka catman.
 

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I just built a j pole from stuff I had laying around. I had some redwood 2x2x8' lumber and 25 ft of bare copper wire I never used. Works great. I'll probably build one out of copper pipe eventually, but I can now get my favorite jazz station in stereo now.

Do a Google search on AK for J pole and there are various build threads. Lots of good info.
 
Somewhere around here was a thread on building a fractal antenna that looked pretty cool, pretty easy & was apparently very effective.

A year or two ago, maybe?
 
Funny there was an recent original post about antennas and DIY antennas, then 4 or 5 more different posts spring up about the same subjects. Sheesh.

There are tons of DIY fractal websites and youtube and other sites out there. AK readers need to research and go to those sites first. And read the past months threads about fractals. Not start new subjects on the same things.

Here are only of a few of the Grey-Hoverman and "star" fractals Ive made in the past month. Put 'em on the wall just to see how they looked. The 'star" is the 1" segment design. A mere 2 and 3" versions naturally work better.

Again let me say I will never go back to overpriced, factory made indoor or outdoor antennas again with the kind of performance Im getting now. Not only HD TV reception, but for across the band analog and digital FM reception. My results have been amazing.

NOTE: Yet again, I saw a younger college student with a laminated, flat as paper fractal star DIY antenna in his car window 2 days ago.. They out perform name brand factory made antennas for auto HD FM reception too..
 

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KKnight said:
Funny there was an recent original post about antennas and DIY antennas, then 4 or 5 more different posts spring up about the same subjects. Sheesh.

There are tons of DIY fractal websites and youtube and other sites out there. AK readers need to research and go to those sites first. And read the past months threads about fractals. Not start new subjects on the same things.

Here are only of a few of the Grey-Hoverman and "star" fractals Ive made in the past month. Put 'em on the wall just to see how they looked. The 'star" is the 1" segment design. A mere 2 and 3" versions naturally work better.

Again let me say I will never go back to overpriced, factory made indoor or outdoor antennas again with the kind of performance Im getting now. Not only HD TV reception, but for across the band analog and digital FM reception. My results have been amazing.

NOTE: Yet again, I saw a younger college student with a laminated, flat as paper fractal star DIY antenna in his car window 2 days ago.. They out perform name brand factory made antennas for auto HD FM reception too..
Click to expand...

There is a fair amount of interest in the G-H style antennae and other fractal designs.

For those in weaker RF field strength areas, the basic G-H antenna may be improved upon with the addition of reflectors and what are being called NARODS, just additional rods behind and above the basic antenna.

In another thread on AK, I have shown the results of antenna modeling and adding FM broadcast performance to a VHF-UHF Hoverman style antenna.

Changing the fractal pattern from the star antenna's Koch curve fractal geometry to Hilbert fractal curve geometry may offer even better performance.

Below are pictures of advance design Hoverman style antennae for those that may need more gain and a directional pattern for reduction in multipath reception issues. In a similar manner the "star" (Koch curve fractal) geometry type antenna my be improved for those in weaker signal areas.

One of my designs has slightly over 6 dBd of gain. That is similar to the gain of an Antennacraft FM-6, six element beam antenna. My design can be hung on a wall and can be built as a bidirectional or unidirectional antenna.

Not a lot of interest in the actual design and theory of these antennae on AK, but they can and do work well when properly designed and built.

Thanks for the pictures of your antennae.
 

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JBL GUY said:
There is a fair amount of interest in the G-H style antennae and other fractal designs.

For those in weaker RF field strength areas, the basic G-H antenna may be improved upon with the addition of reflectors and what are being called NARODS, just additional rods behind and above the basic antenna.

In another thread on AK, I have shown the results of antenna modeling and adding FM broadcast performance to a VHF-UHF Hoverman style antenna.

Changing the fractal pattern from the star antenna's Koch curve fractal geometry to Hilbert fractal curve geometry may offer even better performance.

Below are pictures of advance design Hoverman style antennae for those that may need more gain and a directional pattern for reduction in multipath reception issues. In a similar manner the "star" (Koch curve fractal) geometry type antenna my be improved for those in weaker signal areas.

One of my designs has slightly over 6 dBd of gain. That is similar to the gain of an Antennacraft FM-6, six element beam antenna. My design can be hung on a wall and can be built as a bidirectional or unidirectional antenna.

Not a lot of interest in the actual design and theory of these antennae on AK, but they can and do work well when properly designed and built.

Thanks for the pictures of your antennae.
Click to expand...


Are there instructions - dimensions for those who want to try and build one too?
 
Yes, search the internet for Hoverman antenna or Grey-Hoverman antenna or just fractal antenna.

A fair amount of plans, some more accurate than others.

But, they are simple and inexpensive to try.
 
As mentioned, the length of the short pieces of the star antenna is one inch and the angle is 60 degrees.

The length of the elements for the Hoverman style antenna varies from about 7 inches to about 10 inches, with some designs including both.

These antennae may be built as broadband antennae, covering for instance the entire UHF TV band or optimized for a certain range of frequencies to help with the reception of certain particularly weak channels.
 
In the last week I built a J pole, 1/4 square in the corner of a bigger square (sorry, don't know the correct term) and I just finished a very small fractal of the star type, and while they all do the job, the fractal is so easy to hide, I think I'll go with this.

My issue was that I wanted stereo on a jazz station I listen to a lot. I could not quite get stereo with a simple dipole tacked to the wall so I started building antennas. All did quite well, but all increased the background noise floor quite a bit. Noticeable only between music and during announcements, but it bugs me. Is there any way to filter this out of the signal? I have not had the tuner section worked on on this Fisher 500C.

Sounds good otherwise.
 
A higher gain antenna pointed at the station you wish to receive should improve the background noise.

The problem with high gain antennas is that they are by definition directional. You have to point them carefully. The gain comes from the directional properties of the antenna, just like the reflector of a flashlight directs the light beam.

If you live in a strong signal area and want to receive several stations in different directions then a vertically oriented folded dipole (a.k.a. ribbon antenna) is a good solution. A vertically oriented folded dipole is omni-directional, meaning it receives equally well in all horizontal directions.

A folded dipole is superior to a simple dipole, a J-pole, and a 1/4-wave ground plane because if offers greater bandwidth. A folded dipole can cover most of the FM band well, the others will be more compromised.

The problem with Yagis as directional, higher-gain antennas is that they are narrow band. A Yagi has a bandwidth of maybe 5 percent. The Yagi would need to be designed and built for the particular part of the FM band that you care about.

By the way, bugs have antennae. Radios have antennas.
 
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Antenna is pure Latin. Plural: Antennae.

In general, scientists respect the original plural in Latin. It is the typical treatment for Latin words in many languages.

As words admitted into our, this side of the ocean, English language, 'antennas' is as correct as 'antennae'.

But the old time scientist in me defaults to antennae.
 
I am an electrical engineer specializing in antennas and microwave circuits. I have worked in this field for 35 years. I participate in professional conferences both in the US and in Europe, I subscribe to several professional journals on the subject, and I have never, once, seen the plural of an electromagnetic antenna spelled "antennae".

The name of the IEEE journal on the subject is "Antennas and Propagation". The title of John Kraus's classic textbook is "Antennas".

If you are an IEEE member or if you visit an engineering library you can search and find hundreds, maybe thousands of peer-reviewed academic papers that use the spelling "antennas".

The spelling is universally accepted, for better or worse.
 
The original plural, before the advent of the electrical antenna, was of course antennae.

I suspect that they preempted antennae and antennas out of a desire to make useful distinctions in their field rather than out of any desire to be linguistically correct.

"Ours are electrical and as such the plural should be antennas so as not to be confused with insects."

It might be that I use the term just to "bug" people.:D:D:D

To be clear, I have a long time professional background in electronics and RF and understand the usage to the term "antennas".

Way back in the day, someone said, what shall we call this thing?

Someone said, I know, lets call it an "antenna". What shall we call two or more, the Latin plural is "antennae", but we must be different so lets call two or more "antennas".

We must set ourselves apart from those that study bugs, because we are special.:D:D:D
 
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