Tullman
Well-Known Member
Do you have a picture of that tower?These guys make some nice antennas and towers. I have a 48 ft freestanding tower from them and its sweet.
http://wadeantenna.cn/Wade/wade/cutchannel.pdf
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Do you have a picture of that tower?These guys make some nice antennas and towers. I have a 48 ft freestanding tower from them and its sweet.
http://wadeantenna.cn/Wade/wade/cutchannel.pdf
Do you have a picture of that tower?
Very well put. Indoor antennas & omnis are a piss poor substitute.Heres what I put up at work. Works great for a omni directional. I have one at work 130 or so ft in the air. I have a clue about antennas from other hobbies. You can mount a antenna in you attic with but it won't work as well as outdoor but the added height will make it work better than a indoor. Guys who talk on radios and have a clue will tell you there is no better money spent than antenna and coax. I would rather have a 300 dollar tuner and a good antenna than a 1000 dollar tuner and a crappy antenna. You can find this antenna cheaper its just the first pic I found. For now I'm just using my outdoor tv antenna and it does a very good job even off the sides. I have a great location and this helps a lot also. yagi antennas and quad antennas are directional and work a lot like the beam of a flashlight directing much of your receive in one direction with more elements and boom length making the beam more narrow. There will be small lobes of received signall in other directions but this is kept to a minimum with good antenna design. The second paste up at the bottom of the page shows where the antenna is receiving the most signal direction wise. If wanting alittle wider beam shorter with less elements can be a plus if not using a rotator and wanting channels in one generial direction but not all grouped together. I hope this makes sense. If all the stations you are wanting to receive are basically in one direction a rotator is not really needed. This applies to directional antennas only. Omnis will pick up all around but with less gain.
http://www.staples.com/Winegard-HD-6010-HD-Omni-Directional-Radio-Fm-Antenna/product_209071
yagi beam signal path for fm stereo pics
Very well put. Indoor antennas & omnis are a piss poor substitute.
Antenna gain is secondary to your problem. VHF FM broadcast is line of sight and doesn’t curve over the horizon. Antenna height is the first order. Assume you live where I do where the land is flat. Most stations’ antennas here are 500 feet high or less. Let’s say they’re at 1000’. Google radio horizon or line of sight calculator and you will be able to put in antenna height to get the distance to the horizon. At 1000’, the horizon is 45 miles. If you place your antenna at 1000’ also, the combined line of sight would still only be 90 miles. If you are in a mountainous area, that could work in your favor or if there’s a mountain between you and the transmitter, it could be a deal-breaker. Sometimes there are atmospheric conditions that produce ‘tunnels’ that carry the vhf signals over the horizon, but you really don’t want to rely upon that. There is a trick of sorts that some broadcasters use. They may use horizontal polarization which some say may go over the horizon slightly and perform better than vertical polarization at the horizon. Check the station height and make the calculations it might be workable.Hello friends how can i design a good 11 element fm log periodic antenna to get fm station 100 miles away..I have all dipoles lenght but i dont have the spacing between them..Could you please help me..thanks
nobody noticed....Omagosh! I just realized that I misspelled "performance" in the thread title.
At 1000’, the horizon is 45 miles. If you place your antenna at 1000’ also, the combined line of sight would still only be 90 miles. .
Increasing height is the best way to improve any antenna’s performance. You’ll increase the distance to the radio horizon. The front to back rejection is important for reducing interference from the opposite direction. The linked 14 element yagi has high fwd gain, excellent front to back and a narrow beamwidth. The beamwidth is the angle between points where the gain typically drops off by 3dB. The linked antenna will have around 25-30degree beamwidth horizontally ( when the antenna is mounted with elements vertically) and around 10-15 degrees vertically. Mounting horizontally can help to really narrow the highest gain area so as not to get unwanted signals.I have a roof mounted FM antenna. Two observations:
- I had a 10 foot long multi-element antenna. I replaced it with a much smaller 3 element Yagi. Performance seems nearly as good and plenty for my situation. Unless there is a really, really fringe station you are after, any rooftop FM antenna will probably be fine.
- Although gain in back of the Yagi antenna is less than towards the front, it is still more than an indoor twinlead dipole. Point the antenna toward the faraway station you want and local stations will probably still be fine even if towards the back of the antenna. I have my antenna on a rotator, but never use it.