Tuner / Receiver Antenna's

[oldmako]

Gents, what are some recommendations for a decent FM antenna?

I am currently stringing my domo with various lengths of speaker wire, extension cord, chicken wire, aluminum foil covered coat hangers, etc in an attempt to better myself.....er, better my reception.

I have 5 units going in 5 differnt locations, so I need 5 of something. Sources would be nifty as well.

And lastly since you are all gear heads, how difficult would it be to replace the recently shagged out signal strength meter on my Pioneer tx 9100?? Or is a replacement made of unobtanium??

Thanks for the help, tutelage and flames if necessary.

[russ69]

A standard FM wire dipole (looks like a big letter T) works for most areas. If that doesn't work you'll need a roof top FM antenna. The Rat Shack can set you up.

Thanx, Russ

[soundbound]

Go to Radio Shack or Home Depot and just buy yourself five low cost TV antennas. Rabbit ears. The ones that have two extending hollow metal rods that you pull out for full extension. They come in plastic bags and cost around $5 or so each. You can buy the adapters at those places for the ends that go into your stereo if needed. I then just paint a square piece of wood black and drill a hole in its center to place the antenna in for its base. Or you can buy the ones that already have plastic bases. These work better for me than the T wire type dipoles. I learned of this on the Internet and it works great! You can also rotate them 360 degrees for better receiving direction.

* ( You better buy one and try it out first, because mileage will vary. ) *

[BLSamuel]

You might also look into the various Terk indoor FM antennas. I've a simple square passive model in our bedroom and it works better than a standard wire dipole and is a lot more elegant. I've also purchased for father out law and mother out law and they work pretty well.

Of if you have a good old fashioned outdoor UHF/VHF TV antenna just go to Rat Shack for a splitter to split off the FM. That can work extremely well depending on your outdoor antenna. A good outdoor TV antenna with rotor makes a great FM antenna. We need to upgrade our wasted TV antenna anyway for the DTV conversion (too cheap to pay for satellite though may finally break down) missing most of the VHF elements, rotor hasn't worked in years, aimed in bad direction, etc as the local classic rock station's playlist has been getting pretty redundant lately and I should be able to get NPR and most of the Indianapolis stations with a decent TV antenna....

Heres a review on a Terk amplified model Pi-B (may be old and not sure if this model is still available): http://blogs.pcworld.com/tipsandtweaks/archives/004061.html

The Pi-B is still available for about $30 before shipping at J&R along with numerous other Terk models : http://www.jr.com/brand/TERK?JRSource=gaw.bpm.TERK I've ordered things from J&R since the late 70's when I was in high school. I usually check there before ordering anything online as they often or at least sometimes have pretty good prices and it always arrives quickly. Even ~30 years ago when 4 to 6 weeks was the norm I think one time I mailed in an order with a money order and received it within about a week. Linked here as they have several Terk antenna models.

And I still use an outdoor FM antenna hooked up to an old car stereo from the Rat Shack we had in our dorm room back in the 80's. Man I feel old. I probably should install it outside or at least at the top inside of our garage loft as it's just haning from the "floor joists". Maybe I'll do that when I retire the old Rat Shack car stereo and replace with an old tuner and recevier or amplifier which I hope to do soon.

Good luck.

[oldmako]

All great replies, many thanks. I too remember the days of running it out the window and up the chimney but my present domo has no such acoutrement. Hence my delimna. I was just wondering if there were any 'new' ideas regarding antennae. I had seen a Terk on ebay but I know nothing about it.

The 3 receivers upstairs all have fairly good reception using my low-tech speaker wire trick, but the main mosheen in the downstairs has limp recep and that's the main one I want to improve. I'll look at Terk again and buy elcheapo rabbit ears for the pioneer TX9100 downstairs.

BTW, the cheap Sony HT receiver in my daughters room SUCKS at pulling in anything. Fortunately I only parted with 40 of my hard earned greenbacks during it's acquisition. Conversely, my vintage Sansui is amazing. It's a sweet old unit.

Jazz, Scotch and a Casa Magna tonight. Not too shabby!

[pauln]

Do you listen to just one station? Like the classical station at the low end of the band?

If so, you can tune your antenna reception by trimming the ends of the standard dipole FM antenna, which is default sized for the center of the band.

The FM band is 87.5 to 108 MHz.

Total length of the two legs of the dipole would be:

5 ft 4 3/16 inches total length for 87.5MHz

4 ft 3 31/32 inches for 108MHz

Use proportionality ratios to figure the length for your favorite station...

[oldmako]

Shazam! Now that is usefull info.

Yes, I listen to 89.5 and 90.3 ninety-nine percent of the time so I will hack and whack accordingly. Upstairs I can cheat and stream off the innernets but that's not an option downstairs. Thanks, I will buy both a dipole and some ears. One of the two is bound to solve this.

[Islander]

I've been using rabbit ears for both my receivers, an amplified unit for the living room and a regular unit for the bedroom, one from Future Shop, one from XS Cargo. They both have 44" whips, and get better reception than the cheaper ones that have 36" rods.

Just last week, though, I connected the living room receiver to the TV cable and I'm getting the best reception yet, with no more re-aiming the antenna depending on the weather.

I tried cable FM a few years ago and found that it messed up the TV picture, but this time I used a proper splitter from the cable company and the FM and TV are both good. Most of the stations come in on different frequencies on cable than off-the-air, so I had to reset my presets, but that didn't take long.

Over 40 stations are available, including all my off-the-air favourites.

[LarryC]

You might also look into the various Terk indoor FM antennas. I've a simple square passive model in our bedroom and it works better than a standard wire dipole and is a lot more elegant. I've also purchased for father out law and mother out law and they work pretty well.

I completely agree with this. I'm past tired of scr@wing around with dipoles that are awkward to arrange and rabbit ears that take up room and look 1960-ish. The Terk items are as good or almost as good as any of those IMO. While the old Bic Beam Box was very good, used ones have become pretty decrepit over time.

Antenna choice depends on signal strength. A Terk insider is great for strong signals, while weak or marginal signals don't sound that great of any of them. I've had relatively good luck with the Magnum Dynalab omnidirectional ST-2 whip antenna (below right), mounted on the outside of the second story of my house. Omindirectional means you don't have to reorient it any. See http://www.gcaudio.com/products/reviews/infomagnum.html (scroll way down) or http://www.magnumdynalab.com/fmantenna-st2.htm. Fanfare (on the left) makes one that looks just like the M-D: