Diy FM Antennas

wgtp

wgtp

New Member
I live just outside NYC in eastern Queens in a co-op cannot use a outdoor antenna & cable does not provide FM. Have tried a few Mfg'ed antennas of many types with my Magnum MD-90 and none really work to well. Was wondering if there is a DIY antenna article anybody was aware of for my situation.

Thanks,
Bill
 
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Can you drop a wire outside the window, just a length of wire, perhaps with a nut or something tied to the end for weight? Some 22 ga hookup wire in a neutral color would work fine. Are you on a ground floor? Up higher?

1/2 wave of 98 mhz, which is right in the middle of the band, is only 57"-58" or so. 1/4 wave is 27". You could trace a bent dipole on a window with copper tape, such as is used for making stained glass stuff or security on windows.

You could do a J-pole standing on a floor stand and place in front of a window.

(In the tuner section search for J-pole)

http://www.hamuniverse.com/jpole.html

http://www.mycal.net/old/projects/mpr/jpole.htm

http://latham.dropbear.id.au/antenna/

http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=54727

http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=59214

http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=53918

And these:

http://www.ccrane.com/antennas/fm-antennas/fm-reflect-antenna.aspx

http://www.ccrane.com/antennas/fm-antennas/fanfare-fm-antenna.aspx
 
Anything will work in a pinch. I've got some very nice reception using some 18 ga amp hookup wire, 57" long, sort of rabbit eared out from my receiver going up to nails in the wall. I've seen coat hangers used, it may not be the correct length but it's much better than nothing. Speaker wire would work well also-- though I wouldn't want to hook your speakers into the receiver, just use the wire.
 
Thanx to all for the responses, forgot to mention I am 21 stories up & all my views face East...........Thanx
 
jaymanaa said:
Great post Paul, I've been needing an antenna for awhile. Looks like there's no excuse now.:thmbsp:
Click to expand...



Jay, I don't know if you caught it on another thread, but for my bedroom system I used to have a 57" single wire, which picked up 8 or so stations pretty well.

I had been working on a tuner out in the shop, an Onkyo T-4087, filter mods. I brought it in the house and hooked it up to the RG6 running up to my rooftop antenna from my main system in the living room. Excellent.

On the way back out to the shop I set it on the kitchen table. I have a random wire, a spool of 22 ga 40'-50'?, stretched outside to use at night occasionally with a Grundig S350DL for shortwave. Just for a lark I hooked it up to the tuner, plugged in the AC, and I had LOTS of stations pegging the meter.

Back out to the shop, I found another roll of wire. In the utility room I found a bag of those little plastic clips we use at Christmas to hang lights from the edge of the roof. I ran the wire from my receiver, out the window that was just a few feet away, up to the edge of the roof, along the edge down to the corner, around the corner, and along the other edge until I ran out of wire. Perhaps 30' total.

I am not going to tell you this is as good as my rooftop antenna. But it is close! Certainly much better than the shorter wire inside.
 
Long wire FM antenna.

Here's a trick I use with my little Sangean pocket AM/FM radio. I carry it in my overnight bag and of course it depends on the earphone cords for an antenna. I pulled off one side of some very small speaker wire, about 25 feet or so. I stripped and made a little loop on one end to fit under my earphone jack when it plugs in. I can droop the wire along a bannister or a hotel curtain rod and it pulls in stations like gangbusters. :music:

Then I can roll it back up and stick in the side pocket.
 
I live 35 miles east of Cleveland (a bit further southwest, about 40 miles, from the city's FM stations, though). Most of my FM radios, including my 1958 Zenith C845, can get just about every station in town with just their built-in antennas, but my 1960s-vintage MJ1035 needs a bit of help in that department as its FM section isn't the best in the world (it was one of Zenith's first attempts at stereo FM in a table radio). Anyway, I can get any station on this radio my other sets can get just by using a cheap pair of TV rabbit ears or even a short length of speaker wire; even zip cord works in a pinch. The reception is excellent; as I said, I get most Cleveland stations, several from out of town, and a low-power translator station on 89.1 MHz that rebroadcasts a classical station 60 miles south of me. Not bad for being in a small town only 610 feet above sea level (Cleveland is only 50 feet higher ASL than we are here) and living on the first floor of a two-story apartment building. I formerly lived in an eastern suburb of Cleveland and had excellent reception with a line-cord antenna on my Zenith 4-mode integrated stereo system, but when I moved to my present residence I bought an Aiwa bookshelf stereo that doesn't work well at all in this area with wire antennas or dipoles (stereo reception on most Cleveland stations was terrible). I purchased a Terk amplified AM/FM tower antenna about a month after moving here; it works a lot better, allowing me to hear every major Cleveland station my other sets can receive, but I am aware of the problems the amplifier in this antenna can cause as far as amplifying noise as well as the desired signals are concerned. However, that isn't a problem (or at least doesn't seem to be, to me)--I just don't notice the increased noise on most stations I listen to regularly.

I am a bit leery of using a coat hanger or any kind of bare wire antenna with a series-filament radio such as the MJ1035 (even though it does have a filament transformer), considering the shock hazard. If the MJ1035 were a full-transformer set with parallel tube filaments I wouldn't be concerned, but since the radio has two series filament strings in parallel which in turn are fed by the transformer, and since one side of the AC line is directly connected to the chassis, there is a very real shock hazard if someone were to touch the antenna and a grounded surface at the same time. There is also a risk of electric shock if a grounded device such as a CD or mp3 player is connected to the phonograph input jacks, even though the latter are supposed to be isolated from the line by a blocking capacitor; the hazard is created because, in every one of these radios in current use (all MJ1035s are at least 45 years old now, as they were introduced in 1961), the blocking capacitor has long since failed. For safety's sake I'd replace that cap before using those phono inputs; better to be safe than sorry.
 
I'm on 189th St. off Union Tpke and I use a MD ST2 with my MD 106T. I pick up just about all the available stations (including WFUV.) If you haven't tried one, you might want to give it a shot.
 
You lucky bastard!! I'm 50mi out and there must be something big between me and WFMU. Receiving a usable stereo signal has become my life's work: RG6 cable, antenna rotors, big APS, Yamaha TX 1000, etc. It all seems to be a big tease-never gets very good.
Disgusted in NJ
 
Thanks

Great thread. I learned a bunch. Unfortunately where I live in Los Angeles is in the shadow of the mountains here which have a few of the transmitters on them. Some stations are crazy strong, some very difficult to get a clean stereo signal.

After applying what I learned here I'm getting the best signals so far. Thanks again.
 
Paul C said:
Jay, I don't know if you caught it on another thread, but for my bedroom system I used to have a 57" single wire, which picked up 8 or so stations pretty well.

I had been working on a tuner out in the shop, an Onkyo T-4087, filter mods. I brought it in the house and hooked it up to the RG6 running up to my rooftop antenna from my main system in the living room. Excellent.

On the way back out to the shop I set it on the kitchen table. I have a random wire, a spool of 22 ga 40'-50'?, stretched outside to use at night occasionally with a Grundig S350DL for shortwave. Just for a lark I hooked it up to the tuner, plugged in the AC, and I had LOTS of stations pegging the meter.

Back out to the shop, I found another roll of wire. In the utility room I found a bag of those little plastic clips we use at Christmas to hang lights from the edge of the roof. I ran the wire from my receiver, out the window that was just a few feet away, up to the edge of the roof, along the edge down to the corner, around the corner, and along the other edge until I ran out of wire. Perhaps 30' total.

I am not going to tell you this is as good as my rooftop antenna. But it is close! Certainly much better than the shorter wire inside.
Click to expand...

I had about 35 feet of the old two wire TV antenna cable I just attached to an Onkyo T4150 tuner/HK PM640 Integrated Amp. I strung about 25 ft of it along the "window" walls and the rest is sitting on a shelf in a coil about 6 1/2 feet of the floor. I think my FM is a little fuller and cleaner than the rabbit ears I had. I wanted something less cumbersome and visual than the rabbit ears. I didn't like the idea of installing a rooftop antenna and the sound is good enough I don't think I want to take the ladder out to string it outside.

Thanks.
 
wgtp said:
cannot use a outdoor antenna ......
Click to expand...

Bill:

Not sure what restrictions you have, or have been told you have on posting an antenna.

A lot of Condo Associations or HOAs still have outmoded restrictions against outdoor antennas.

In fact the FCC ruled some time ago you can put up an antenna in almost every case (see link below). Now the rules say TV antennas are allowed, not FM antennas, but most TV antennas (obviously not dedicated UHF antennas) will do a fine job on FM

Link to FCC ruling on the use of antennas:

http://www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/otard.html
 
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