How do you make a FM antenna?

[jras20]

I want to make a FM antenna, I dont want to spend to much money, I'm in a fringe area. I want to be able to pull in Houston & Victoria. I'm about 84 miles from Houston and about 30 miles to Victoria, Texas.
Thanks

 

[BobOnTheJob]

I guess I could say you go flip burgers at McDonalds for 4 hours & take the $20 to Radio Shack & buy their basic yagi. While I admire your interest in building an antenna, you'll spend more money building something that probably won't work as well as what Radio Shack offers. Or...find someone with a VHF TV antenna who now has cable & offer to take it down if you can have it. That will cost zero & will likely still outperform anything you'd likley build up yourself. I'm not trying to be a wise guy, but with how cheap yagis are, it makes no sense to attempt to build one. If you have nearly $100 to spend, I suggest you Google the APS-9 antenna. It's a 9 element yagi that will far outperform any TV antenna of the Radio Shack yagi. And it's on sale now at Stark Electronics...If you have $200 to spend, the best yagi available is the APS-13...But if all you want is 100KW stations at 80 miles, the APS-9 will amaze you & the Radio Shack yagi will probably suffice. Let me know what you settle on & how pleased you are...

 

[jras20]

Sad to say I dont see that antenna any more Radioshack must of quit carring them.

 

[DXER1]

I think that radioshack has discontinued the antenna industry as far as their radio antennas. TV antennas are slowly coming back due to HDTV.

 

[eyg2181]

Radioshack Blows, i was looking for a CB radio antenna and an FM antenna both for the roof, and they dont cary anything.

and about a year ago i was looking for a light for a display for my stereo, and that was a bitch to fing a radioshack that had one of those.

www.matelectronics.com

 

[Radio-X]

I want to make a FM antenna, I dont want to spend to much money, I'm in a fringe area. I want to be able to pull in Houston & Victoria. I'm about 84 miles from Houston and about 30 miles to Victoria, Texas.
Thanks

Well, this is a random question. If you want to *make* an FM antenna and if your receiver has a 300 ohm antenna input (two screws on the back), just get a 12 foot piece of speaker cable, hook it to the back and stretch it around the room.

If your receiver has a 75 ohm input (looks like a cable jack), your best bet is to go on eBay. I bought a good dipole antenna that I have hooked up on a 15' pole outside and I get 100kWs from 70 miles away like they're locals. That cost about $40 with shipping.

I would look into getting a good radio tuner before getting a really nice FM antenna. Magnum-Dynalabs, Fanfare, older Pioneers, and Denons are all good ones. Of course, I'd rather have a $200 tuner hooked up to a $30 antenna than a $30 tuner hooked up to a $200 antenna.

Also, the higher you can get the antenna up, the better reception you get...but watch out for lightning!

Radio-X

(Pround M-D FT101 owner)

 

[jras20]

Also, the higher you can get the antenna up, the better reception you get...but watch out for lightning!

Radio-X

(Pround M-D FT101 owner)

I learned my mustake from that last year! I never unhooked my radio at home, I have a 12 element Yagi antenna about 20'up in the air. Lightling either hit it or hit near it, blew everything in my room out. I since started unhooking everytime a storm would come through. I just would like to have a alternitive antenna incase something happens to my pole out there.