Kenwood Receiver

Mike Kozak

Bought A Kenwood Kr-5030 Receiver off ebay for 100.00 It is great shape but does not pull in stations for Sh*it I have a dipole antenna hooked up, any suggestions

Thorton

I have an old KR-V8070 in the garage. Still works great. I only plug in my phone for music. No radio. Good luck.

mhardy6647

Kenwood (TRIO in Japan, in those days) was (is) first and foremost a radio company. The tuner should be quite good (EDIT: actually, it was pretty high-end at the time for Kenwood!). If the tuner isn't working well, it needs attention. That said, what are you using for an antenna and how do you have it connected to the receiver?

For example, even though much maligned, the simple, cheap "T" shaped dipole antenna (supplied with many receivers in those days and long thereafter) actually isn't a bad antenna, but it has a figure-8 reception pattern -- with nodes oriented along its long axis. Any station that lies in the direction of either node will be effectively excluded from reception. Also, make sure that the antenna you're using is connected to the correct inputs on the Kenwood -- is the antenna configured as a 300 ohm balanced (twinlead) or 75 ohm unbalanced (coax)?

I'm sure you know that FM is VHF (between the old analog TV channels 6 and 7 in the frequency spectrum) and reception is relatively limited in distance and essentially "line of sight" (though not as bad as UHF/cell phone transmissions in that regard). Altitude is your best friend when it comes to an FM antenna -- the "line of sight" is that much longer! Also, of course, a directional, high-gain antenna (e.g., a Yagi) is the best option for FM -- but these need to be as high as possible (attic or roof) and carefully oriented straight at the transmitting antenna. If you wish to receive stations from multiple directions with a directional antenna, you'll want a rotator, too.

All this being said, it's very possible that the Kenwood's tuner needs either repair or alignment. The latter is not for the faint of heart, and requires both fairly sophisticated (and properly calibrated) equipment and some expertise "for best results". :- )

EDIT: If you don't have the manual, you can the service docs (worth having, IMO) from
http://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/kenwood/kr-5030.shtml (free registration required to download their content, and well worth it, IMO). You can probably peruse the alignment instructions in there if you wish :- )