An indoor FM tuner better than the Terk FM+?

You might try a C.Crane FM Reflect antenna. I have one that performs well in a fairly mountainous area. I mainly listen to NPR, 88.5.

http://www.amazon.com/C-Crane-FM-Reflect-Antenna/dp/B000EFHPKO

I am now ready to answer my own question -

I have been trying out more antennas and I believe the answer is NO - I have not found an indoor FM antenna significantly better than the Terk FM+.

I tried the Godar, the Tune trapper, a Radio shack folded dipole, and a single-wire antenna that came with my receiver. The Godar was clearly the worse. The Tune trapper was OK but not as good as the FM+. The single wire antenna was actually OK on a lot of stations. The Radio Shack folded dipole did pretty well and beat the FM+ on some stations. I did not try any of the rabbit ear style antennas due to WAF concerns - maybe some of those would be better.

My tuner (Sony ST-SA50ES) supports two antennas and in the end I decided on the Terk as antenna A and the Radio Shack as antenna B. Between the two I get decent reception for most stations within about 30 miles.

Mark

Cutterfilm -

Thanks for the link - I will try it.

My tuner has two antenna inputs so I can use one for the public radio spectrum and one for commercial stations.

How do you mount it? Vertical or horizontal?

Mark

I built one based on this design...
http://www.wryr.org/Antenna_instructions.pdf

It works great. It's not directional. The design is intended for the public radio end of the FM spectrum.

I've had good luck in various situations with the inexpensive though somewhat antiquated/kitschy looking Magnum Dynalab Silver Ribbon Antennas. They do seem to work best in areas of strong signal strength, and it helps to have space to manually turn them as needed.

I wish I could but my house is a loft-style and has no attic. I do already have an outdoor TV antenna installed but I get no signal from it. It has an amplifier on it somewhere and I think it has died.

Mark

Try an outdoor antenna in your attic.

Sure, just pop me an email and we can probably work something up.

I have that and several other items that I am not using currently that I plan to put up for sale shortly when I have some time including a Musical Fidelity A3CR power amp, Carver c-6 pre-amp, dbx 3bx mkii dynamic range enhancer NAD 7020 receiver (maybe) a Linksys Wireless G router and a 500Gb Lacie networked file storage drive.

Of course I meant antenna not tuner! I wish there was an edit function.

Thanks for the reply mapman. I may take you up on the offer for the Godar.

Mark

I have a Godar. It works well but not better than others like Terk on some tuners and totally bombs on others. It seems to like analog tuners OK but it flat out does not work with digital tuners from what I see. Mine is sitting unused in favor of a traditional folded dipole.

If you'd like to try it I'd be happy to sell it to you for a pittance since it is sitting unused at present.

I don't think any indoor antenna is categorically better than the Terk or even a simple folded diploe in my experience. You have to go to an outdoor antenna usually to do better for sure. Or, just switch to internet radio and forget about antennas altogether.