-
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
Telescopic or Wire Antennae...Which gives better reception?
- Thread starter jason99
- Start date
a little information would be helpful:
location (city)?
type of building?
multi-story?
near a window?
offices faces what direction?
what station(s) do you want to hear?
location (city)?
type of building?
multi-story?
near a window?
offices faces what direction?
what station(s) do you want to hear?
A whip or short random wire will not do much for AM, since most all radios use these for FM antennas. ;D
My choice would be for the whip, since you can orient it....and it STAYS where you leave it. Wire antennas are much more difficult to get right. And sometimes if you shift it even by an inch, it'll screw up with your reception.
My choice would be for the whip, since you can orient it....and it STAYS where you leave it. Wire antennas are much more difficult to get right. And sometimes if you shift it even by an inch, it'll screw up with your reception.
Most radios seem to use an internal loop for the A.M. and the whip for F.M. only. Stephanie is right on the money on suggesting that even a one-inch relocation of the whip and it's angle can make a difference, usually on F.M. only.
Amusing incident: I was working inside such a building and the product our company designed and made are the antennas that populate the top of cell phone towers. A new product we were bringing to the market-place was a repeater and antenna system that makes it possible for your cell-phone to work inside malls, office buildings, etc. Our company president was entertaining questions and suggestions from the peons one day so I screwed up a bit of courage and asked if the whiz kids who design all this stuff could whip together a rather mundane system to bring broadcast inside out building.
Let's put it this way. My question was not well received.
Every building is different. Every receiver is different. Experiment. You may luck into a miracle.
Amusing incident: I was working inside such a building and the product our company designed and made are the antennas that populate the top of cell phone towers. A new product we were bringing to the market-place was a repeater and antenna system that makes it possible for your cell-phone to work inside malls, office buildings, etc. Our company president was entertaining questions and suggestions from the peons one day so I screwed up a bit of courage and asked if the whiz kids who design all this stuff could whip together a rather mundane system to bring broadcast inside out building.
Let's put it this way. My question was not well received.
Every building is different. Every receiver is different. Experiment. You may luck into a miracle.
I am with everyone else on this one. I will go a step further and say the whip antenna is never the AM antenna.
I will even go yet another step further and suggest the Grundig S350 or newer model portable from Radio Shack (or the GE Superradio if its still available as a lesser priced alternative...GE is not found at Radio Shack) The Grundig is digital and has the best selectivity and sensitivity of any reasonably priced ($100 or less) portable radio. I know that there are other and better serious radios for specialty use, but good luck finding them and checking them out. You can walk into Radio Shack and leave with a decent piece of radio hardware. Yes it comes with a whip on top....and the whip it comes with is considerably longer than that of other cheapie portables. It gives you an extra advantage when tryinng to zero in on one signal fighting another on a frequecy.
The sound from the Grundig is modesrtly good, but not teriffic. This is more a radio for difficult reception problems than for audiophile sound. The headphones are stereo, the radio is stereo, the built in speaker is mono only. It does have built in line outputs, so you can use it with an in house or bigger stereo system, or add an adapter and a pair of those computer speakers you have sitting around and you have stereo if thats what you want. I was answering from the standpoint that he is more interested in getting the specific stations than hearing them in living stereo.
I will even go yet another step further and suggest the Grundig S350 or newer model portable from Radio Shack (or the GE Superradio if its still available as a lesser priced alternative...GE is not found at Radio Shack) The Grundig is digital and has the best selectivity and sensitivity of any reasonably priced ($100 or less) portable radio. I know that there are other and better serious radios for specialty use, but good luck finding them and checking them out. You can walk into Radio Shack and leave with a decent piece of radio hardware. Yes it comes with a whip on top....and the whip it comes with is considerably longer than that of other cheapie portables. It gives you an extra advantage when tryinng to zero in on one signal fighting another on a frequecy.
The sound from the Grundig is modesrtly good, but not teriffic. This is more a radio for difficult reception problems than for audiophile sound. The headphones are stereo, the radio is stereo, the built in speaker is mono only. It does have built in line outputs, so you can use it with an in house or bigger stereo system, or add an adapter and a pair of those computer speakers you have sitting around and you have stereo if thats what you want. I was answering from the standpoint that he is more interested in getting the specific stations than hearing them in living stereo.
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:MI screwed up a bit of courage and asked if the whiz kids who design all this stuff could whip together a rather mundane system to bring broadcast inside out building.
Let's put it this way. My question was not well received.
Well.....such a product does indeed exist. I'm thinking of the units they use for "Tunnel Radio" -- to rebroadcast local AM & FM stations into things like the Lincoln or Holland tunnels in New York City. Also, the agency in charge can periodically over ride all the AM/FM signals inside the tunnels to broadcast tunnel-related information bulletins.
Something like that could definitely be made to work inside an office building.
jason99 said:
My old office in Antioch could have been best described as a bunker. I worked in there two years and tried it all until I finally pulled my old Pioneer tabletop stereo (just your basic all in one tuner/cd/cassette I got at Service Merchandise in 1994) out of the attic and attached tv antenna rabbit ears. Hit the thrift stores / garage sales and get a nice late 80's - early 90's stereo and get a pair of the rabbit ears. The Pioneer pulled in everything. I was in the middle of the building - no windows. Worked like a charm.
My Sangean and my Grundig radios were deaf in that office.
I do travel with a Kaito 1101 that is wonderful on FM in hotels and most offices I visit but the sound gets a bit tinny for daily all day listening (even though that is what I am using in my home office now).
StephanieNYC said:
That was my point. I was working for a major vendor in that market place. If we could handle two way traffic between cell and pcs handsets and the base towers for people in all these radio resistant areas, they could probably.... while blindfolded.... put together a system back in the skunkworks lab for our office area to cover broadcast bands. (These engineers working on antennas in those frequencies considered ALL broadcast engineers rank amateurs!!!)
The problem was not the ability to do it. The problem was that our c.e.o. was a retired general who wanted his people working, not listening to the radio.
- Status