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Need advice on an indoor FM antenna

Ok, it sounds a bit strange, but when I married my wife I moved into her house. In one of the rooms upstairs (my new listening room!) there was a length of speaker wire sticking out of the wall. I asked her what it was for and she said "FM Antenna". I figured there was some sort of antenna in the attic. I hooked the H/K to it and it pulls in stations that my dipole won't get so I was thrilled. I finally got around to checking the attic ater this thread started and it turns out the "FM Antenna" in the attic is about 30' of speaker wire in a big loop connected to the rafters! Hey, it works! :D
 
DanTana,
The mediocre performance is probably a function of how far I can extend the masts. I just don’t have the room to extend them all the way without making the antenna the prominent feature of the room.

Thatch,
The Long Beach State University Jazz station, KKJZ (formerly KLON) comes in loud and clear. Being just a couple of miles from the transmitter I can get it even without an antenna. The two NPR stations are the ones that are sometimes troublesome. KCRW is in Santa Monica probably 25 miles away and KPCC is in Pasadena, a good 20 miles. Certain times of the year or certain weather conditions they get pretty weak. I’m on the north side of Signal Hill so that’s not the issue. I have a friend that is in the shadow of the hill and he has real trouble with reception.

By the way, this Labor Day weekend is the 25th annual Long Beach Blues festival. A great time to be in Long Beach.

- Pete
 
Originally posted by LBPete
DanTana,
The mediocre performance is probably a function of how far I can extend the masts. I just don’t have the room to extend them all the way without making the antenna the prominent feature of the room.

Thatch,
The Long Beach State University Jazz station, KKJZ (formerly KLON) comes in loud and clear. Being just a couple of miles from the transmitter I can get it even without an antenna. The two NPR stations are the ones that are sometimes troublesome. KCRW is in Santa Monica probably 25 miles away and KPCC is in Pasadena, a good 20 miles. Certain times of the year or certain weather conditions they get pretty weak. I’m on the north side of Signal Hill so that’s not the issue. I have a friend that is in the shadow of the hill and he has real trouble with reception.
- Pete
Click to expand...


Pete,

Is your area's jazz station also an NPR affiliate? If so, I wouldn't even bother with the other two. You must have tremendous signal strength from the local station if you are only a mile or two from the tower.

If you are only 20 miles from Pasadena and 25 miles from Santa Monica, you should still have good reception from both stations most of the time. What are you using as an antenna? If you are using even a simple dipole, you should have decent reception from most stations within 20-25 miles. I live in the Midwest and have never been to California, so am unfamiliar with FM reception problems on the West Coast or anywhere west of Ohio.

I live in a small town about 40 miles southwest of the Cleveland FM stations (including WCPN, the area's NPR affiliate), but have good reception from most stations as I use a powered antenna ahead of the digital AM/FM tuner in my stereo. There is also a translator station on 89.1 MHz which retransmits the signal from WKSU-FM, 89.7 MHz, the NPR station operated by Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, some 30 miles south of Cleveland (and 70+ miles from me). I hear the translator's signal fairly well, as it is only perhaps 10-15 miles east of here.

Kind regards,
 
powered rabbit ears

I stopped using amplified rabbit ears as after a month or so every one I bought would start putting noise in my signal. . . BTW I did have a trick Jensen set of powered rabbit ears that was programable. . . It was funny to watch it turn to the channels that were in its memory.

Years ago I had a big channel master on the roof with a programable rotor. . . Even with that I couldnt get what I wanted (96ROCK Atlanta) because of a 100,000watt disco cannel at 96.3 any time you were at 95 up to about 97 thats all you got. . . . Came in on the back side of my antenna it was 20 miles due south and 96 ROCK was about 100 miles due north. . . .
 
Jeffhs
The local Jazz station, KKJZ is not a NPR affiliate but they are a listener-supported station. The two NPR affiliates may be just 20-25 miles away but much of the city of LA is between them and me. Long Beach is on the southern end of the LA Metro-plex. They are both city college stations so they probably don’t have very strong transmitters or prime transmitter location. KCRW uses numerous translators to cover the outlying areas but none of them are down this way.

I’m currently using the GE Optima antenna, discussed elsewhere in this thread, tied to a Sansui 9090DB. The Optima is not a powered antenna in as much as it does not use an external power source but the box it came in claims it has some sort of magic circuitry in it.

For what it’s worth, these three stations have very different programming. KCRW is mostly the NPR news shows and very eclectic, a lot of new up and coming music. KCPP is mostly talk structured around the NPR programming. KKJZ is all music. I regularly listen to all of them. They all have a web presence with streaming audio so if you have a broadband connection, check them out.

- Pete

Here are links to the stations:

http://www.kcrw.org
http://www.kkjz.org
http://www.scpr.org/
 
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DanTana,
Selectivity is not the issue. There is no overlap of the stations. Some days they are just weaker than others and I either have to mute the FM stereo or play with the orientation of the dipole antenna. Will filters improve the signal strength?

- Pete
 
LBPete, Filters will not improve overall signal strength. It will however narrow the band of the frequency, this focuses the tuner tighter at those frequncies. Usually this focusing comes at a cost of signal quality. That is why on some tuners you have wide/narrow mode, or local/distant, wide mode will sound best for local channels and distant or narrow will help pull in the farther out stations. One thing you can do to gain 1-2db of sensitivity is remove the 300 ohm baluns inside the tuner. You can cut it out and just solder in a straight wire in there. One to the ground and the other to the signal wire.

LBPete, What kind of tuner do you have BTW?
 
You might think about spending a few more $$$ for a ChannelMaster antenna. They are built to last, and suck in signals like a girl I dated in college.
 
I bought one of the Terk AF-1 antenna that are being sold by several people on ebay. I enjoy a station that is 45 miles west of my home, this terk is the only antenna that I have tried that will do it. I went for 15% signal strenght to 75%, I really like this antenna. :)
 
Since I have 2 GE Optima antenna's I decided to try them both at the same time. I wouldn't of thought so, but signal strength increase even more. Not alot mind you, but in some circumstances it does make a difference.
 
Does anyone have a collection of Audio magezines from the 80`s ? if so please look for an article on antenna`s! There are plans to build the best indoor antenna this side of the universe!!! I know that for a fact since i built one years ago, it is the best!! I no longer have tha antenna and misplaced the design. It is simple to make, all you need is twin line cable . Heres an example of the design; cut 2 pieces of twiwn line 1 is the feed line the other is the antenna, cut a piece about 56inces long solder the feed to the middle of the 56in line ,you have to cut out the wire in the middle that your going to solder. Now on the top part short out from the middle 24 & half inches from the middle. The Audio version is a lot more effective, it`s something like 9 to 10 ft long!
 
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