rotating cheap HDTV antennas, any good for FM?

loudnoises

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prices are dropping, $20 or less in some cases.

Cheap plastic i imagine, but anyone plunked down the $$ to try it out? I'm looking to install an FM antenna for my parents, and anything bigger won't pass the MAF mom acceptance factor. MUCH tougher than WAF to work with.

Anyone tested one out for FM reception? they're far enough out they need something directional, and the stations are in all directions. If it lasts till next winter i'll be happy, winds rarely gusting over 30, more snow/ice that'd take it out i think.

Wish they hadn't taken the old antenna down. While i'm quite fine with my homemade oversized antennas, mom requires more finessed/discrete appearance.

How bad are they?
 
I would get a uhf vhf combo that looks like the older tv antennas. You can rotate it if you want but I get a ton of stations keeping mine pointed in one direction and use it for tv also. The vhf will work for fm. Almost all channels are uhf so it works pretty good for both. They won't be selling the combo antennas much longer I would not think so I'm picking up two of these.

http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?p=HD7694P

I use one like the post above at about 120 ft up at work and it works great but being 120 ft in the air helps a lot I'm sure.
 
I would get a uhf vhf combo that looks like the older tv antennas. You can rotate it if you want but I get a ton of stations keeping mine pointed in one direction and use it for tv also. The vhf will work for fm. Almost all channels are uhf so it works pretty good for both. They won't be selling the combo antennas much longer I would not think so I'm picking up two of these.

http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?p=HD7694P

I use one like the post above at about 120 ft up at work and it works great but being 120 ft in the air helps a lot I'm sure.
That one's tuned for channel 7 and up; FM is next to channel 6, so it's not going to
work well for radio.
 
An antenna tuned for FM signals, like the Winegard I posted above. Any FM antenna will work equally well for analog signals and HD radio, since HD is just a digital subcarrier system on the existing FM frequencies.
 
That one's tuned for channel 7 and up; FM is next to channel 6, so it's not going to
work well for radio.
That's true but I use a antenna craft tuned for the same freqs at home about 20 ft up outside and it still works great. It may have slightly less gain being one channel lower than design but the difference in db gain would be slight. I guess it would be a fuzz better using one with longer elements that's good down to channel 2 but where I live I get a lot of wind so I like the shorter elements. But I see what your saying You can get some bigger ones good down to channel 2 on the same site. You can mount it in the atic using fishing line out of sight and it will still work pretty well but not as good as outside. Google some images and you will see what I'm talking about. Peace.
 
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There is no substitute for full sized, purpose designed antennas. In general an FM broadcast band antenna will outperform a TV antenna used as an FM broadcast band antenna. This is just the basic physics of antenna design.

It is true that just about any type of conductor (TV antenna, random piece of wire and so on) will receive a signal, this does not mean that it is the best solution to receive the station(s) of interest.

It is all about the amount and quality of the signal that the antenna sees. Again, just the basic physics of antenna design.

It may have slightly less gain being one channel lower than design but the difference in db gain would be slight.

This is not necessarily true. You have to understand that the difference in frequency (1 channel as you say, TV channel 6 to TV channel 7) is actually a difference in frequency of about 86 MHz. Not a small, trivial amount in terms of antenna design.

AAA NET GAIN FM GAIN FOR VHF LOW BAND TV ANTENNAS.jpg

The picture above shows how the gain of some typical TV antennas falls off a cliff above about 92 MHz or the lower end of the FM broadcast band. It is not a slight difference as some claim. Keep in mind that the gain numbers listed on the left side of the chart are in dBi not dBd and as such you must subtract about 2 dB from these numbers to compare to the basic FM broadcast band dipole antenna.

The best of the group above only have about half of the gain of a basic FM broadcast band Yagi-Uda style antenna.

The small rotatable TV antennas are basically UHF antennas (that is where most of the TV stations live) with maybe a single VHF antenna element. They try to make up for this by using an RF preamp in the antenna.

Again it is all about the strength and the quality of the signal that the antenna sees. What works well or not for one person does not necessarily translate into the same performance for someone else at a different location.
 
I get a kick out of "HD" antennas ... I know a lot of people bit on the marketing hype and "upgraded" their old OTA antennas. The sad thing is, they're the same thing as the original TV/FM antennas, only with a higher price tag and prettier labels. Pure unadulterated snake oil, with a side of hocum.

PS ... I've got an ancient FM loop similar to the Winegard that does a decent enough job, but my RatShack combo "long distance" yagi with rotator runs rings around it, and my FM6/ST2 stack runs rings around that. You DO get what you pay for on quality and distance.
 
I get a kick out of "HD" antennas ... I know a lot of people bit on the marketing hype and "upgraded" their old OTA antennas. The sad thing is, they're the same thing as the original TV/FM antennas, only with a higher price tag and prettier labels. Pure unadulterated snake oil, with a side of hocum.

Eh...most yagis back in the day were designed more for the VHF spectrum, with UHF as an afterthought, as the big network channels were typically in the lower half of VHF. Most current broadcasting occurs in the UHF spectrum, with a handful of channels (none in some areas, like St. Louis) down in the old high VHF (7+) band. Antennas that are better suited to UHF reception are probably going to work better under the current broadcasting regime.
 
I get a kick out of "HD" antennas ... I know a lot of people bit on the marketing hype and "upgraded" their old OTA antennas. The sad thing is, they're the same thing as the original TV/FM antennas, only with a higher price tag and prettier labels. Pure unadulterated snake oil, with a side of hocum.

PS ... I've got an ancient FM loop similar to the Winegard that does a decent enough job, but my RatShack combo "long distance" yagi with rotator runs rings around it, and my FM6/ST2 stack runs rings around that. You DO get what you pay for on quality and distance.
Best FM antenna I ever had was a RS 110 mile range directional on a rotor. The 110 mile rating was very conservative.
 
Many good TV antennas are designed to filter out ("trap") the FM radio band to prevent a strong FM radio signal from interfering with your TV reception, especially channel 6 since it overlaps the low end of the FM band (in fact, quite a few channel 6 TV stations are acting as FM radio stations, via their audio signal at 87.75 MHz).

An "HDTV" antenna may still work OK for FM reception, but it won't necessarily be any better than a cheap pair of rabbit ears, and it certainly won't be as good as an antenna specifically designed for FM reception.
 
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