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Setup an antenna to my vintage Nikko Receiver

R

raziv_tri

New Member
Hi everyone
(this is my first post here )


I bought through a friend recommendation a Nikko STA-4030 receiver (pics below).
He did the setup at my place about 5 months ago.

The radio was working fine. Suddenly last week it started to falter.

Since I'm new to this world and it fascinates me I'de like to understand a bit more...


This is the receiver:|
front.pngrear.png

At the rear part - where the green circle is - he connected the below cable:



WhatsApp Image 2024-02-01 at 14.54.54.jpeg

When I tighten the screws on it, the radio still sucks. I believe the cable is bad too - look at it.

Now my questios are:
1. What is the name of this cable? And how come the other side (where there is only one pin) is not connected anywhere?
2. What are those FM channels below the green circle? And what importance do they have?

Thanks!!
 
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Welcome to AK!
First of all, the bracket inside the green circle is supposed to make contact with the external shield of a coaxial (75 Ohm) cable. The cable that you have is an extension for a flat ribon (300 Ohm) antenna. It is not supposed to be fixed on the bracket, which is actually a ground connected to chassis.

You can make yourself a very effective antenna with a single small wire, approximately 50cm long, connected at one end to the second (from the left) thumb-screw under the bracket. You can make a few turns with the free end of that wire around the power cord, it makes a better antenna.

Your receiver might need a good clean up, with electronic contact cleaner, of variable controls and switches inside.
 
ecluser said:
You can make yourself a very effective antenna with a single small wire, approximately 50cm long, connected at one end to the second (from the left) thumb-screw under the bracket. You can make a few turns with the free end of that wire around the power cord, it makes a better antenna.
Click to expand...
On the other hand, if you are in an area with weak FM reception, you may want to try an external FM antenna. You can get one from Amazon for not much money. If you really want to pull in those distant stations, a roof or attic mount is the way to go. Since most current antennas are 75Ω, you'll either need to modify the cord to get it to fit within that coax clamp (not recommended, since some modern cables are pretty thin), or get a 300Ω to 75Ω balun (these should be fairly easy to find, even though they're not used much any more) and connect the leads to the two FM screw terminals.
 
@pauldrewry good point, maybe my translation was wrong.

Let's say that suddenly the radio did not pick my regular radio station. Thats why I decided to look at the behind and tried taking the cable out etc.
Besides that, it has a lot of radio noise.

@ecluser so what you mean is to take a regular single-cable and just wire around here? (like the green circles)

Thank you all for your responses
 

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It looks to me like you are using a 300 ohm extension rather than something that was designed to be an antenna, because antennas don't have those connections on two ends.

The first thing to do is to try an actual antenna. They are cheap; you can get them at any electronics supply store or various places online; here is one:

www.parts-express.com

Home

Parts Express FM Dipole AntennaStandard FM dipole antenna with 300 ohm twin leads. Use with F-type balun for 75-ohm coaxial input on A/V receivers (sold separately). 6 ft. length.
www.parts-express.com

You can probably find it elsewhere that will save you money on shipping, so you likely don't want to buy that one, but it tells you what you should be looking for.

Notice the second "picture" at the link, which is a drawing. When in use, it forms a "T" shape, and it should be oriented such that the top of the "T" is perpendicular to the direction of the station you are wanting to pick up. You hook it up to the two FM screw antenna connections below the circle in your picture. Do not attach it to the coax connection in your circle.

And, yes, it is possible to make one yourself, but these are cheap and are easy to hook up.
 
One other thing. The way you have those controls set, there is a high likelihood of you overdriving the amplifier. (It seems you like a lot of bass and no treble.)
 
raziv_tri said:
@ecluser so what you mean is to take a regular single-cable and just wire around here? (like the green circles)
Click to expand...
Yes, basically that's it

img1.jpg

For those of you who never tried this kind of antenna, try it. This is very common to see this kind of antenna built inside receivers of the late '60s. Almost every receiver with 8 tracks player has one. You just need a small wire, like "telephone" ones. Gauge #22, #20, anything small. You must experiment with the number of turns around the power cord for best reception.

I have a story for you. One day someone brought to me a receiver for a tune-up. He told me that his receiver was certainly out of alignment (it was) because it was connected to a large tower antenna, with a rotor, and the signal reception was bad. I made a tune-up to his receiver and I connected an antenna like the one above. Believe it or not, he called me to say that this little antenna works better than his large tower antenna.
 
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