Best indoor FM antenna?

[Katalyst]

The reception is muddied up again and as described in post #17 this thread. No changes made at my end.

As with all things audio the source has the most effect on quality. The broadcasting station is the source.

 

[ConradH]

Could be the station, but more likely multipath or some 3rd party interference. There's also HD radio self noise. See here- http://www.ham-radio.com/k6sti/hdrsn.htm

What happens when you hit the mono button?

 

[mckayprod]

No doubt in my mind, the simple rabbit ears antenna gives you the best bang for the buck. Mine gives me many San Francisco stations (70+ miles away), and, on its lazy susan turntable, I can get all the Sacramento stations (30+ miles) except certain low-power signals. You can also null out adjacent channel stations. Every location is different. Sometimes my shortwave sloper works better than anything else, but I can't predict it's performance. RF is weird!

 

[nailer]

I am a bit of a novice building a new system, and would be interested to hear your indoor FM antenna recommendations.

APS Antenna - in - Attic. Exceptional J-pole no longer available.

 

[dly66]

Another one has been happy with a quad. Get a bit fancy pulling the 18 ga Ook solid copper hobby wire in 3/4" PVC with an Ideal F-splice. Can pick up everything at the local Home Depot. The Ook wire is usually over with the picture hanging stuff on the hardware aisle. Don't really have to bond the pvc, usually holds together pretty well with just friction fit. Can use braided nylon rope to hang in the rafters. Gave a friend a Technics SA-5170 they use for background music at work. Have one hanging below the ceiling tilted about 30 degrees from horizontal in the panel room of a 3-story self storage facility panel room about 8 ft from a 1kA main breaker panel. Of course a number of sub-panels in there too. Upper floors concrete poured on metal panels. Able to pick up her favorite mid strength station in a really poor environment for an indoor antenna. Put another in the attic hanging vertically on braided rope between rafters of their storage facility live in (at another location) cutting and putting a connector on an old incoming cable TV coax. The TX-2500 there most of the main stations in the local market were in the 4-5 range on the signal meter after hooking it up. A folded dipole on the living room wall had not been doing well.

Cutting a 10' piece of pvc into 4 equal lengths is about right. The one with the cross or can use a T instead, you have to cut one in two and shorten each to allow for the extra fitting. With the cross can slip a finger in from the other side to help get the wire into and onto the f-splice.

Quad definitely seems to have a big advantage over a folded dipole on sensitivity to its surroundings.

I usually solder one end of the wire to the outer threads of the splice after pulling tight. Other stuck into the center (after bending 90 deg) and a bit of adhesive to hold in place. The pictured one a bit messy clear silicone was what I had handy at the time.

 

[drjim]

APS Antenna - in - Attic. Exceptional J-pole no longer available.

What made it so "exceptional". It's a J-pole....they're all the same except for construction. It's a half-wave vertical, with the "J" portion being a matching network.

 

[nailer]

It works better than anything else. To improve on it's performance you'd need a yagi. I've an APS-13 that will probably never be hoisted.

 

[drjim]

Well, if it's properly designed and constructed, it will work as good as a J-Pole can. Nothing magic about it. It's a half-wave vertical antenna, which means it has a lower Main Lobe compared to a common quarter-wave whip, resulting in a bit of gain. It's an End Fed Half wave, comparable to a vertically oriented dipole, with none of the drawbacks, like having to run the feedline at 90* away from the antenna for a wavelength.

I don't deny they're "good" antennas, and I've built several. Seems they have some of "mystique" to them I don't quite get, and I've been studying and building antennas for 60 years now.

 

[AmadeusMozart]

Another one has been happy with a quad.

If you have some noise located in one spot and the transmitters are spread widely away from that area in a semi opposite direction then you might get a tad adventerous and try a Moxon (basially a quad laid down flat with the sides cut).

http://www.antentop.org/w4rnl.001/mox20.html

 

[buckeye56]

Question: When I play FM radio via my receiver, many of the stations only emit sound from one speaker (right) and a few from both. What causes this, and how can I fix it? I live in a high rise, face south. Have tried moving the antenna in various directions, etc., nothing.. The stereo setup is near enough to the window.
I’m a cord cutter and also have an indoor antenna. I tried moving it in different places to see if it impacts radio reception, but nothing.
My left speaker works fine, btw. The images below are from my receiver booklet, and I am still using that antenna.
Thanks for your help.

 

[Punker X]

Question: When I play FM radio via my receiver, many of the stations only emit sound from one speaker (right) and a few from both.

It is unlikely that an antenna would cause this. On the ones that only come in on one channel do you have a stereo lamp on and the ones that do are you in Mono with no stereo lamp? Could be dirty switches that need to cleaned.

 

[buckeye56]

It is unlikely that an antenna would cause this. On the ones that only come in on one channel do you have a stereo lamp on and the ones that do are you in Mono with no stereo lamp? Could be dirty switches that need to cleaned.

Thanks for your reply. I’ve posted . some pics. Have tried it with fm muting on and off, still same result. There have been times when I’ve just walked by and the other speaker comes on, so seems like some kind of interference, but hasn’t happened lately. Have tried putting antenna up high in T form, nothing. Is there something that I should put close to the antenna, some metal or copper thing that could help?