Nice large directional FM antenna

£220 seems like a lot of money for a 9-element beam. Also, Brian Beezley's specs show much worse F-B ratio than Innovantennas are claiming:

http://ham-radio.com/k6sti/fmdx-9.htm

Also, why are they charging 20% less for customers outside the EU? Good for North American customers though.
 
£220 equals ca. $375 Canadian,a rather substantial amount for an antenna,even if you do lop off 20%. And when you factor in the shipping (and the liklihood of it getting beaten to death on the way over) yikes!

I have been looking for a while now and cannot find anything in this class of FM antenna on this side of the pond.There used to be many makes and models on offer for FM service,but they have all disappeared from the market. I'm seriously considering diy at this point.
 
I don't even know if they are still available (and they may not import to North America) but I bought a Körner 9.2 9-element beam in 2014 from Antennenland in Germany. Importing it into the UK plus shipping (partially assembled) was around £85 IIRC, which is much cheaper than the Innovantenna equivalent. Brian Beezley has a write-up:

http://ham-radio.com/k6sti/korn92.htm

Maybe worth DIYing if it's unavailable?
 
I just spent the better part of a week of evenings on a quad loop DIY project. Preliminary results were disappointing. Yeah, I cut a few corners and need to revise a couple things to get it in spec before I move on to the next thing. Would be nice just to buy something I know is going to work. Unfortunately i'm stuck with just a couple indoor options for deployment. One learning I had with my DIY refrigerator box size pvc monstrosity VS a set of rabbit ears is I could get any desired station with either with optimum orientation in multiple planes. Of course it was much easier to orient the rabbit ears perfectly for best reception on a given station. This included lengthening and shortening the ears depending on the broadcast freq. More to come. I love antennas! They're so darn mysterious.
 
Big snip.

Also, why are they charging 20% less for customers outside the EU? Good for North American customers though.

The UK charges a 20% VAT on most purchases, but if the purchase is being shipped outside the UK, the buyer is not required to pay the 20% VAT and the 20% savings is applied at the time of the purchase.

I’ve purchased B&W speakers, Wharfedale speakers, a Mitchell turntable with a Rega arm, and some other audio products and I didn’t have pay the VAT because I had everything shipped to my home in North Carolina.

On this same trip, my wife bought some Wedgewood china and Waterford stemware that was on sale at a store in London, and she got both the sale price and the 20%.VAT refund. The combined total VAT savings paid for our airfare and most of our lodging expenses.

I’m currently considering the purchase of a Lumin MQA DAC and media streamer and I can save quite a bit of money if I buy them from a UK dealer and have them shipped to me here rather than purchasing them from one of their USA dealers. :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana:
 
I use an old deep fringe VHF/UHF LPA on a 40 ft tower and a new rotor, it works just fine for what it is and costs, it came with the house :). There are lots of them around just waiting for you to take them down and move/set them back up again. it is a real PITA however. Hint, using a very long rope, hook them up to the hook on the front of the 4x4 and lower gently. make a pocket in the ground like a pole vault. We have one guy left in the neighborhood that still does this work, I hired him to change the rotor.
The Stellar Labs 4 element Yagi is the cheapest that I have found, but it ain't a deep fringe type.
https://www.staples.ca/en/stellar-l...iIIaTBst9-jLHrUCOBQaAjY7EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
 
If you are here in Canada,this place is likely your best and most economical option for antennas,but they only have two for FM,and neither is a great option.

Many of the Yagi's intended for television use can provide extremely good FM performance,but they all have the UHF section in front,which can make an already large antenna positively huge! In my case,I have considered buying a top of the line model,then removing the UHF portion and ''trimming'' the remaining VHF elements for dedicated use in the 88 to 108mhz band.And then relocating the mast location to preserve balance!

Also,you have to be careful which one you choose,as many antennas are now designed for use from channel 7-up in the VHF spectrum,making them useless for FM,as the FM portion of the band falls between channels 6 and 7.

http://www.saveandreplay.com/
 
yes these days you have to be careful what you choose for FM after TV went digital ATSC.
You know i think there maybe a small niche market for a high end FM antenna. To bad I ain't an antenna designer. Getting a Stellar Labs 4 element Yagi and using it as starting point. I think I am going to get it to play with it, use it in the loft since I do not have a tower signal. I think with some effort you can figure it out with some trails.
 
As seen here, one can add an additional element to the Stellar Labs antenna and improve its performance a little. I would likely make the element slightly longer than recommended. While this would lower the maximum gain (note the rising gain at higher frequencies) and it could result in slightly more gain at lower frequencies.

For an antenna used indoors, the additional element could be made from coat hanger wire.

To be clear, this is not going to be a world class antenna, but for the money spent is is not a bad value.

When one needs a deep fringe antenna, all of the small losses add up. As shown in the link a well constructed coaxial cable balun can increase the signal available by almost a dB and depending on the quality the standard balun, even more. One should use the lowest loss feed line possible.
 
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