Ignorant question of the day - Which Antenna?

[Quadrunner]

I recently saved a Technics ST-k55 tuner from being tossed, and everything still seems to work pretty good, but I can't get enough reception for stereo and the guys at technics decided I only needed the 75 ohm screw terminals (no coax) on the back for this operation 75ohm - ground.

In the past I have always simply connected a dipole antenna (What I keep on hand) with two leads to the 300 ohm, often which is labeled to share one terminal with the 75, because that's what I was told you do with a dipole and that works. The 75 ohm was taboo for me, but this unit doesn't have a 300 ohm option. So to experiment I hooked up one lead of the dipole onto an older tuner (which has both options 300-300/75-gound) on a 75 ohm post, letting the spare rest against a piece of plastic and that worked fine too, increased reception signal significantly, and the odds of tuning in with solid stereo. Differences in signal strength did not seem to matter so much as to what terminals I connected to, as properly orienting the antenna.

So should I go out looking for a new antenna, I'm wondering what exactly I should be looking for in a proper configuration. Why are there generally two ratings of impedance if the 75 seems to work with a dipole? Does there happen to be reliable "backwards" compatability one way or the other?

 

[Jeff449]

If you use a dipole, connect one wire to the 300 ohm terminal and the other wire to the ground. If that doesn't pull in your stations, and you don't have a tv antenna, you may need to go shopping. Unless you live in the boonies or a deep valley, you shouldn't need anything extraordinary like a powered antenna.

 

[I LIKE MUSIC]

Deleted.

Sorry I pulled the wrong manual, dog gone meds anyway...

 

[rmp]

Quad,

You don't say if you have a simple dipole, or a folded dipole. Simple connects to 75 ohm and ground. Folded connects to 300 ohm and ground.

 

[nj pheonix]

You can get a Balun to match your dipole to the tuner. Even a simple dipole should significantly improve reception.
Note the dipole is directional. If you were to rotate plain 90 degrees (that is from E W to N S ) you can get or lose additional stations, receive better, worse, eliminate nearby station interference.

 

[twiiii]

You can always use use a Terk amplified antennae. It will work for 90% of what you need. Back in the day I used Finney or Jerrold Log periodic FM antennaes to capture Fm from a 750 watt transmitter 100 miles away. To day the ERP is 50,000 watts so the little terk does just fine. I only listen to two college stations any more. We only have 5 FM HD channels and none of them play what I prefer to listen to so I haven't upgraded. I recently had to have one of my 3 tuners worked on and the improvement in FM reproduction was fantastic.