The thought did cross my mind, but the receiver pulled in 3 stations at the lower end of the dial at another location (I just moved 3 months ago).
Thanks,
Milton
Thanks,
Milton
Indoor Urban Apartment Antenna Question
- Thread starter milton10
- Start date
devoid
NA Volvos and Amplifiers
A malfunction was my conclusion also. How do other radios work below 94mc? If they have good reception and your HK does not... Very commonly I see dirty contacts in the tuning cap cause poor lower band performance. Very easy fix as long as you don't bend or contaminate the fins of the capacitor. Caig Deoxit 100% in the dropper bottle. You'll see little leaf springs holding the shaft of the capacitor into the frame. It's that electrical contact point that gets dirty and throws the front end out of whack. One or two drops per and work the dial end to end maybe a dozen times. Reception should improve.
Mark W.
Nut house of the Universe
OK guys hang tight I got a little fancy in my design but I will be building it in the next day or to.
With the local snow and ice storm and my wife being the bookeeper at a large grociery store 42 miles away I been spending my days driving her to work and sitting on my ass in the break room while she makes sure the people get paid. That was today SUNDAY, Tomorrow I guess I have to do the same.
BUT it will be a short day and since I have spent the last 2 days up there refining my plans they should build really fast.
I will say my design uses a slightly different wire routing then the instructions on the PDF but looks like the Version two on the drawing Mortsnets linked to.
My design is intended to look really good as well as work well. I wanted an antenna that could be on a ceiling without looking like a bunch of junk. Hopefully the finished product will look like I hoped.
With the local snow and ice storm and my wife being the bookeeper at a large grociery store 42 miles away I been spending my days driving her to work and sitting on my ass in the break room while she makes sure the people get paid. That was today SUNDAY, Tomorrow I guess I have to do the same.
BUT it will be a short day and since I have spent the last 2 days up there refining my plans they should build really fast.
I will say my design uses a slightly different wire routing then the instructions on the PDF but looks like the Version two on the drawing Mortsnets linked to.
My design is intended to look really good as well as work well. I wanted an antenna that could be on a ceiling without looking like a bunch of junk. Hopefully the finished product will look like I hoped.
I built one in about an hour using a couple lengths of 1" x 2" and some thick insulated electrical wire designed for installation inside conduit.
I simply stapled the wire onto the "x" shaped wooden supports. Got a little fancy and chiseled out half the depth on the two lengths of wood where they cross/join at the junction of the X (a rabbeted joint?). That way they keep the wire in the same plane.
I had no 300 ohm flat wire for a connection so I snipped off the bottom end of a dipole and soldered it to the thick electrical wire. I'm out of town but will post a pic when I return.
The result? Far better reception than a standard dipole in my basement utility room with lots of copper and galvanized pipes and electrical conduit. I'm using an old NAD 4020 tuner that has no meter and simply lights a LED when a station is properly tuned (just like a Tivoli radio) but I'm pretty sure I have about the same or slightly better reception than my former very old fixed but dedicated "yagi" (?) FM antenna that is pole-mounted on my chimney about 22' to 25' higher in elevation than the new DIY antenna. The ungainly shape makes it hard to be stable sitting propped on a counter top but it's easily adustable to improve reception.
I made the broader band version (30" square side lengths) but want to make the version specialized for the low end of the dial where I can't seem to pick up the low powered college stations I really want but still can't get.
Highly recommended and very easy to do.
I simply stapled the wire onto the "x" shaped wooden supports. Got a little fancy and chiseled out half the depth on the two lengths of wood where they cross/join at the junction of the X (a rabbeted joint?). That way they keep the wire in the same plane.
I had no 300 ohm flat wire for a connection so I snipped off the bottom end of a dipole and soldered it to the thick electrical wire. I'm out of town but will post a pic when I return.
The result? Far better reception than a standard dipole in my basement utility room with lots of copper and galvanized pipes and electrical conduit. I'm using an old NAD 4020 tuner that has no meter and simply lights a LED when a station is properly tuned (just like a Tivoli radio) but I'm pretty sure I have about the same or slightly better reception than my former very old fixed but dedicated "yagi" (?) FM antenna that is pole-mounted on my chimney about 22' to 25' higher in elevation than the new DIY antenna. The ungainly shape makes it hard to be stable sitting propped on a counter top but it's easily adustable to improve reception.
I made the broader band version (30" square side lengths) but want to make the version specialized for the low end of the dial where I can't seem to pick up the low powered college stations I really want but still can't get.
Highly recommended and very easy to do.
ponderbear
waltzing with sin
I want to give props to the FM-10 as well.
Also your idea about putting a yagi or other multi-element antenna under your bed is not a awful idea, except keep in mind this sort of design is very directional- find a model that will fit under your bed in all directions or you will end up tripping over it half of the time. Plus, how much fun would it be having to adjust it constantly?
How high are your ceilings? Paint it white, mount it upside down to the ceiling on a remote-controlled rotor and call it "kinetic sculpture."
Also your idea about putting a yagi or other multi-element antenna under your bed is not a awful idea, except keep in mind this sort of design is very directional- find a model that will fit under your bed in all directions or you will end up tripping over it half of the time. Plus, how much fun would it be having to adjust it constantly?
How high are your ceilings? Paint it white, mount it upside down to the ceiling on a remote-controlled rotor and call it "kinetic sculpture."
Jeffhs
Super Member
I live on the first floor of an apartment building, 33 miles east of downtown Cleveland, and also cannot use outdoor antennas, for FM or anything else (I'm also a ham radio operator and must use indoor antennas with my equipment as well; doesn't work very well, though). I can get all Cleveland stations, plus a few suburban and out-of-town ones, on most of my radios simply using their built-in antennas. However, the digital tuner in my bookshelf stereo system needs lots of help in this area (it obviously is not designed for use in areas such as where I live--I'm maybe 40 miles from the Cleveland FM transmitters, which are located in a southwestern suburb of the city); a dipole just doesn't cut it. I bought a Terk indoor AM/FM amplified tower antenna which works, but it picks up quite a bit of computer hash. My apartment is quite small, and is laid out such that I must have my stereo right next to my computer--no other place to put it, 
which results in the antenna picking up every bit of the computer's CPU hash--and the preamp in the antenna base just makes matters worse. Drowns out weak stations, such as one of my favorite oldies stations which is some 35 miles east of here. I've tried using the antenna without the preamp, but it doesn't work very well.
Oh well. Such are just some of the vagaries, scourges and drawbacks of living in an apartment building. I have cable TV but most cable companies, including the provider in my area (Time Warner), did away with FM stereo radio service a long time ago. When my area had Comcast cable and before that, Media One, the system did carry FM stations, but I guess the availability these days of music channels on digital cable has eliminated the FM service on almost all US cable systems. I do wonder, however, if cable systems in Canada still have optional FM stereo radio services. :scratch2:
which results in the antenna picking up every bit of the computer's CPU hash--and the preamp in the antenna base just makes matters worse. Drowns out weak stations, such as one of my favorite oldies stations which is some 35 miles east of here. I've tried using the antenna without the preamp, but it doesn't work very well. Oh well. Such are just some of the vagaries, scourges and drawbacks of living in an apartment building. I have cable TV but most cable companies, including the provider in my area (Time Warner), did away with FM stereo radio service a long time ago.
When my area had Comcast cable and before that, Media One, the system did carry FM stations, but I guess the availability these days of music channels on digital cable has eliminated the FM service on almost all US cable systems. I do wonder, however, if cable systems in Canada still have optional FM stereo radio services. :scratch2:I was thinking of using something like an Antennacraft FMSS omnidirectional antenna. It is small enough to fit under my bed and does not have a directional problem. Any thoughts?
I also like the idea of the homebrew antenna. Both are cheap enough, maybe I can try each and see which works better.
I also like the idea of the homebrew antenna. Both are cheap enough, maybe I can try each and see which works better.
I want to give props to the FM-10 as well.
Also your idea about putting a yagi or other multi-element antenna under your bed is not a awful idea, except keep in mind this sort of design is very directional- find a model that will fit under your bed in all directions or you will end up tripping over it half of the time. Plus, how much fun would it be having to adjust it constantly?
How high are your ceilings? Paint it white, mount it upside down to the ceiling on a remote-controlled rotor and call it "kinetic sculpture."
nashvillebill
Super Member
An omnidirectional will not have as much gain as a square loop antenna or a properly oriented dipole. Plus, it won't reject stations that are off-axis to the stations you want to pick up.
A square-loop antenna can be hidden in many creative ways. I put one in a stairway, and just stapled the wire to the wall (in the shape of a square, of course). You could hide it in a closet. I put one in the attic, made out of PVC pipe to hold the wire in the square shape.
edit: A Yagi is pretty much considered to be the "gold standard" of FM antennas, though I'm sure there's some other designs which approach its gain and off-axis rejection.
A square-loop antenna can be hidden in many creative ways. I put one in a stairway, and just stapled the wire to the wall (in the shape of a square, of course). You could hide it in a closet. I put one in the attic, made out of PVC pipe to hold the wire in the square shape.
edit: A Yagi is pretty much considered to be the "gold standard" of FM antennas, though I'm sure there's some other designs which approach its gain and off-axis rejection.
The "cheesy" looking folded dipole that comes with every tuner ever made is actually quite effective, and very hard to beat. Trying to make an even more effective antenna by cutting its length for one end of the band or the other would be a mostly worthless endeavor. You would never hear the difference in a the few dB's that would make. The listener in Orlando has many good stations to choose from already so I guess I don't really understand his problem. Yes, Yagi's are nice but then you have to have a rotator, and then every time you change the station you need to rotate the thing. I would get tired of that in about 2 minutes-max.
A dipole is bi-directional so stations off the end can get lost. Maybe the best solution is the crossed-dipoles system which is an omni directional horizontally polarized antenna.
Or better yet- a good tuner!
A dipole is bi-directional so stations off the end can get lost. Maybe the best solution is the crossed-dipoles system which is an omni directional horizontally polarized antenna.
Or better yet- a good tuner!
