• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Antenna Help

E

eyg2181

Guest
does anybody know some good strategies on how to ,make a good antenna that will have better reception? something that is sort of easy and cheap to make...that can greatly improve reception...instead of just wrapping speaker wire around random objects, i thought id ask and see if anyone knows how to make an antenna or improve one...you guys know what i mean, if you can give me advice on how to improve my reception on my stereo reciever let me know

thanks
 
for local reception , if you have an older stereo receiver , with twin screws , use a 300 ohm ribbon-type , t-shaped , which should already be pre-cut to 31-1\2 inches ... it will be extremely "directional , though , which will mean you will have to move it around , in perhaps visible ugly positions , to get in certain weaker stations ... i hope you were not talking about a roof antenna , if so , a vhf antenna on the roof will really do well
 
either one should probably do it.....i have a dipole (ribbon type) in pottsville and it works great...but in levittown it dont make a big difference...what do you think would pull NYC stations in better, and how much does a roof one cost, and how would i hook it up?
 
levittown.... hmmmm bucks county .. you are closer than i am to n.y.c. ... super easy to do a v.h.f. rooftop .... either an angle mount , or a chimney mount , if you have a chimney ... face the smaller part of the h flat side towards n.y.c. ... use a 5 foot mast , or higher , above the highest part of your roof , if you have a typical levitt built home..... that will suffice .. get a dozen or so insulated standoffs .... they screw into the house ... ... no rotor will be necessary since you are primarily interested in n y c stations ... way way way too much to put on here .. i cannot type at all .. lol !!! (sad truth)
 
In Levittown, you are fringe for almost all NYC FM's, but the good news is that they are fairly easily received. If indoor is your only option (and I hope it isn't), get a twin lead (flat antenna wire) dipole, and fully extend it so that it looks like a T. Then, orient it so that the top of the T is perpendicular to NYC (an added benefit from your location is that you will also be roughly perpendicular to Philly, so no dimunition of your Philly signals). Tack it to the wall as high as you can. You can help this antenna with gain by connecting it to a signal amplifier, but there will be some loss through the 300-75 ohm baluns.

If you can mount an outdoor antenna (I hope you can), go to the Stark Electronics page and order this FM Yagi: http://www.starkelectronic.com/acantena.htm#FM. DO NOT install it using 300 ohm twin lead; while this cable has good gain dry, it loses much wet, and must be installed with standoffs so that it doesn't touch metal. Connect it using RG-6 coax (RG-59 if you want to go cheap). Install a ground, and ground both the antenna mast and the coax (use a grounding block). If you don't, and lightning strikes, your receiver, and possibly your house, will be toast! Aim the smaller end of the antenna toward NYC (use this site to determine the proper direction: http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx). You will point the small end in the direction for TV channels 2, 4, 5, etc. If the coax run is longer than 25 feet, you may need to install a preamplifier to overcome the signal loss, but this is typically more of an issue with TV reception than FM. If you want to spend some money and add a rotor to this installation, you will find a sea of stations out there for the picking!

Good luck! I am confident you will pull most of New York's FM dial with the outdoor setup, and a goodly chunk of it with the indoor dipole. If you have any questions, post them here, and I'll try to answer.
 
FM

is it possible to pull in 95.9 The Rat, and 105.5 WDHA in levittown?

also, how would i hook one of these up to my receiver?...my antenna input looks like a speaker input except the buttons that press down are all black unlike the speakers which are red and white...
 
NO.....300 ohm twin lead is archaic, and circa 1960's. It is NOT what you use for a quality antenna installation...ever. And I didn't say 50 ohm coax. RG-6 and RG-59 are both 72/75 ohm cable. No knowledgable electronics/antenna guy is going to install a quality Yagi with twin lead; it sort of defeats the purpose of using an antenna with high directivity, as the twin lead picks up everything, omnidirectionally, just like a car radio antenna, on its downhill run into the house.

As to the specific station questions: WRAT is possible with the outdoor Yagi and a rotator. You would have to aim the antenna carefully to null WCTO and WBEN. Not likely with the indoor dipole, regardless of what you do with it orientation wise. WDHA--I used to be able to get it in Ewing with an indoor mounted turnstile omnidirectional antenna, so I am hesitant to say it's impossible. Again, the outdoor Yagi w/rotor increases the liklihood of you receiving it
 
OOPS....missed the important part of the question. Those press terminals on your receiver are for 300 ohm antenna cable. So, use a balun, which converts the 75 ohm feed from your antenna to a 300 ohm output (spade terminals, like an old fashioned TV set used to use). For the press terminal type receiver, I cut off half of the spade, and stick the other half in the terminal. BUT, do not use 300 ohm twin lead all the way from the antenna.

BTW, if your receiver has these terminals, I'm guessing it's older...which bodes well for your receiving distant signals well. The new stuff isn't half as good as the old!
 
thanks for the info, i appreciate it... i have an akai AA-V205 receiver from the 1980's in the living room, and the antenna is looks like a cable tv input, but i have an adapter for it that has screws, and the fisher RS-911 at the house in pottsville has excellend reception as well...i just have speakerwire there though and just that works great,
 
How about this...

Do you have cable TV? Try running a split from the cable to your receiver and see what you get. Keep in mind - some cable companies will transpose frequencies for some reason so a station that may really be on, say 106.1, may actually be on the cable at 107.3 or something like that. It may have to do with local signals - if the station is local they push it around on the cable so you don't get horrendous multipath with the signals on the same frequency mixing together at the back of the receiver.

But in any case, give that a try since I know of some cable companies who will receive distant stations and put them on so they can offer another service to subscribers.

Just a thought....
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom