Improving FM Radio Reception: Tips & Tricks

[spender]

How to improve FM radio reception? I have this boombox type radio in my room with one meter long telescopic antenna, reception is sometimes really bad. Should I just hook up length of wire to the antenna or what ?
Thanks.

 

[Biology]

How to improve FM radio reception? I have this boombox type radio in my room with one meter long telescopic antenna, reception is sometimes really bad. Should I just hook up length of wire to the antenna or what ?
Thanks.

well what i do normally...i have just a small antenna but i touch it to some very long metallic container in the open and it becomes clear..i would also love to know what is the processs to catch signals..

 

[GENIERE]

If I recall FM transmission antennas are elliptically polarized, with a dominant horizontal mode. You might try angling the receiving antenna and adjusting its length.

 

[BoulderHead]

How to improve FM radio reception? I have this boombox type radio in my room with one meter long telescopic antenna, reception is sometimes really bad. Should I just hook up length of wire to the antenna or what ?
Thanks.

What is feasible to do is dependant on circumstance but one solution would be to purchase a good directional antenna and mount it as high as possible. An 8-element YAGI would go a long way towards improving reception in remote/fringe areas. [digression] Imagine a 5-element nearly 60-feet off the ground using guy wired bamboo for the pole…that one worked well.[/digression]
FM is a peculiar beast however and sometimes the only thing that works well is to hold the antenna between finger and thumb, lol.
Ok, you did mention ‘boom box’ and a great many of these are made to be flashy at the expense of a good receiver. If you’re a hand with circuits you can build a booster for the front end and that may very well all you’ll need. One easy way to determine this is to bring in a receiver that is known to have good reception and compare the two. If yours is lacking, I’d break out the soldering iron and spare parts box.
Good luck.

 

[spender]

thanks guys for the sugestionss, I just attached 4 meters of wire to the antenna and so far no major problems with reception.

 

[Ouabache]

I enjoyed Boulderhead's suggestion of the 5-8 element Yagi, guyed 60 feet off the ground
That would definitely make an improvement.

Something you could easily try and which ought to work better than a long random length of wire, is to make a 1/2\lambda dipole, cut for the center frequency of the FM band (or if you had a particular station you liked, you could cut the dipole for that frequency). I have used a 1/2 \lambda dipole for FM reception and suspend it horizontally and it works well.

Here is an example of what I am talking about.
http://members.tripod.com/martin_leese/Audio/indoor_aerial.html

Today most FM broadcast tranmissions are circularly polarlized, so if you are slightly more ambitious, you might build yourself a circularly polarized FM antenna.

see this example of what i am referring to:
http://www.n2.net/k6sti/attic.htm

(this antenna was made using 12 feet of #12 electrical wire and fed with 75\Omega coax).