I have a Terk powered antenna.
Small, 5 by 5 inches. $30.00 shipped.
Rabbit ear TV antenna with adjusting knob works great for me in my NYC apartment. I connect them with R-g 6 cable. |
Congrats on your "new" Sansui. I just added one to my collection and love it.
On antennas, first, free and easy, try hooking the wire to the other 300 screw just to see if it gets any better. Second, cheap and easy although not DIY, get a $4 folded dipole from Radio Shack. It's terminated in 2 little spades that you hook up to both 300 ohm taps. Even though tacked to a wall high as possible is best, you can hang it down the back and stretch it out on the floor as far as you allow. You may be surprised. |
Go to a TV store and buy the cheapest set of rabbit ears you can find. Most of mine were bought for under $10 at Fry's electronics in Austin TX. My rabbit ears have outperformed any powered antenna I have used before. Powered antennas tend to amplify their own noise. |
Yes...go with the $4 dipole at RS...
Take no offense Doyle, but you live in Metro NYC where there are lots of stations nearby. I am surprised you need a amplified antenna, but I'll bet it is your building.
Move to a more suburban or rural area and you'll find out that the Terk is not really all that good.
The best thing is a real roof or attic VHF antenna, but I guess you can't do that.. |
Thanks, I will try to R.S. dipole. |
Just as an added FYI...
The entire FM band is between the VHF TV channels 6 and 7.
This is why the rabbit ears will work, or actually any VHF TV antenna. |
Thanks Prefab and Sugarbrie, I will also try that, I guess the rabbit won't mid hanging upside down behind my rack...or does the antenna need to be placed the other way round ? |
I will add to my comment on amplified antennas that while I don't prefer them; in Doyle's case if his problem is the building blocking the FM signals, then an amplified antenna may be his only choice. |
Sugarbrie...While what you say about the FM band being in the middle of the TV bands is correct, please note that amplified antenna, and mast-mounted RF amplifiers often have a "FM trap" filter to notch out the FM frequencies which adversely affect the TV picture. |
You said CHEAP, right? I built this one with a few feet of speaker wire and a few wooden sticks glued together. Slips nicely hidden behind my entertainment unit, though it is directionally sensitive. You can also build one right on a wall by wrapping around nails... read the directions and you'll see what I mean. couple of links to same project - one has an animation that helps you visualize the design.
http://www.wryr.org/Antenna_instructions.pdf
http://www.zbconline.com/antenna.html
http://www.zbconline.com/3dantenna.html |
Gdoodle, excellent sites. Are you using one of those designs? I'd like to try my hand at making one myself. Does the cable connecting to the cubial have to be 300ohm ribbon feeder cable as well? |
Cmk - I am using one such home brew antenna - its hanging on a nail behind my large entertainment unit - out of sight. Hooked up to my 70's vintage Kenwood receiver. Better reception than the store bought thing - but we are in the floor of a valley - hard reception on the low power NPR/classical type stations. I did blow $5 on the 300 ohm ribbon cable - not sure it was worth it. radioshack's is stiff and hard to work with - very hard to strip. Next time I would do that part with speaker wire and see if it sounded alright first. |
Gdoole, I'm having trouble locating 300ohm cable. Any suggestions? I was told normal speaker red/black wire would do. Around here, we don't have a radio shack... |
CMk - I would just build it with speaker wire - the thing about the 300 ohm cable is that the wires are separated by about a half inch - not sure what this does - but you could simulate this by separating but holding them at half inch with duct tape/electrical tape. I have no idea what the spearation or 300 ohm bit is about - it might be totally unnecessary for short runs. I'll bet it will sound fine with speaker wire. I've built this twice - once with a fancy wooden frame made out of dowels and molding - then the super fast way to build a stationary one - just put four nails in the wall and wrap the wire around in the square configuration... You live somewhere that doesn't have a Radio Shack??? Don't tell me you don't have Starbucks either?...
Note that the ant design has two variations depending on which part of the spectrum you are trying to pickup... I went for the smaller college radio/NPR version. |
I am planning to do a DIY antenna with the first set of plans to use with my Tivoli table radio. The instructions are really not clear but I am just going to attempt how I think it is done and see how it works. I will wrap the speaker wire around the X shape (made of 3/4" MDF) then pull tight and tape the two wires together. Then I will just route the two ends toward the center of the X and tape there, strip the ends and connect the balun directly to it. Then just connect an RG6 coax cable and run it down my wall to my radio. |
Congratulations for living in an area where FM is still worth listening too. Marketing driven greed has killed the vast majority of them nationwide. |
Well I have just recently had a renewed interest in terrestrial radio in my area (Dallas/Fort Worth). Things were getting pretty bleak there for a while and I had pretty much stopped listening to any FM broadcasts and had Sirius installed in my car. Jagger was taken off the air and replaced by Lex and Terry; 97.1 The Eagle (the only remaining rock station)was replaced by another station playing mexican music.
Now jagger is back on mornings on a dedicated talk station. The first non-commerical country station has popped up 95.3 The range. 97.1 the eagle is back on the air and even the classic rock station 92.5 has changed to a better mixed format of Southern rock/country. We also have a great community radio station 89.3 that has a great variety of formats from blues, reggae, country and many others. Classical 101.1 is a great classical station as well. Now we need a good jazz station and a better oldies station that focuses more on the golden oldies and we would have it all. Next I plan to get an HD radio tuner to check out the available digital stations in my area.
BTW that antenna worked fairly well. I was able to pull in 89.3 clearly which I was not able to do with the little string antenna it came with. I am still unable to pull in 95.3 which is disappointing but it is one of the weakest stations in my area. |
Tommyv,Try kntu 88.1 for great jazz.Comes from Denton though.Might need a better fm Antenna.
Acman3 |
@acman3. How did you get Kntu 88.1 to come in clean what antenna do you suggest. |
Calvin, actually I only listen while driving, but I drive a lot.😊
I don't even own a tuner at home so I'm worthless on the antenna. Maybe try streaming?
KNTU is a great Jazz station. Whoever does programming is excellent. |
I know. I drive a lot too. The sound quality in McKinney and Denton is great. Wish I could get the same in Uptown Dallas. |
I found a way to get a decent stream today. This station is amazing.
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