Hi Hank, I've done much reading on this subject of improving fm reception
with an indoor antenna.  As you already learned, amplified antennas don't
work.  I also tried the BesBuy indoor active Terk fm tower with no luck.  I
really don't think you can do much better than the good old rabbit ears
antenna for indoor antennas.  The trick to using one of these antennas is
getting the right location and orientation.  On some stations just moving
the elements an inch or so will cause me to lose my station.  Also try
setting the elements to about a 40 degree angle and then tip the setup in
the direction that gives the best signal.  If you can get the rabbit ears
into a crawl space in  to the attic this might help.

Try a loop.  Length is 1005/Freq in Mhz (about 10 feet for fm).  Connect the
ends of the wire to the 300-ohm side of a 300 to 75 ohm balun.

Below I've listed a couple of antennas I'm researching, but have not tried.
They are both really just dipoles but these antennas are often mentioned in
the audiophile articles I like to read.

The Silver Ribbon Antenna by Magnum Dynalab
The SR-100
(I think it's about $35 if you can find one)
A high-efficiency indoor antenna that is ...
• Continuously tunable across the FM dial to maximize reception,
• Rotatable for best station orientation.
• Designed to complement just about any FM system arrangement.
• Receives local HDTV signal with ease due to its UHF design.
• Directionality helps in solving problems due to multi path interference


And then Ccrane has a $35 dipole (I think it's just an off-center fed
dipole), but it might be worth a try.  About $35.


Good luck,
73, Ken -N5SWR

-----Original Message-----
From: For blind ham radio operators [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of hank smith
Sent: Saturday, May 12, 2007 6:49 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: off topic fm and am antanna help


Hello.
I am trying to pull in some week signals out of seattle wa from olympia wa.
I am running a boston acoustics recepter
currently I am using a pair of rabbit ear tv antanna's in the horzontal
possission and am getting a little better results but I am needing a bit
more recieving power on fm and I am also needing some am recommendations.
I purchased a amplified am/fm antanna from terk for 30 dollars from best buy

and it was the worst performming antanna that was amplified I ran in to even

with the amp maxxed, it had a amp dial that you could adjust.
any recommendations for indoor use that I can purchase at a local store?
either from radio shack best buy or some other  place?
thanks
Hank

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