FM antenna?

Hey Hydro,

What are you trying to achieve with the FM antenna reception? Depending on what you want, different products are better suited for apps. What you are looking for is commonly referred to as an FM splitter - search google for lots of info.

If you have a good way to hide one, or looks aren't a big concern in the area where your receiver/tuner is, one of the best antennas per penny spent out there for just grabbing nearby stations is the simple dipole - you might even have one laying around. Chances are it will do everything one of those overpriced Terk antennas will do at 1/10th the cost. Keep in mind the dipole generally has 300ohm connectors, so you may need a balun if your tuner only has a 75ohm coax antenna connection.

It's no Dynlalab ST-2, but then again a dipole is a great design that works with some directional characteristics. Winegard used to make good stuff, as did channel master. Here's a reasonable priced Winegard at ABT.

If you're out on the fringe trying to pick up stations 150 miles away, or pick up 98.5 to the east and have a 98.7 out west ... you might need a directional. If you live somewhere where almost 100% of your transmission towers are 20+ miles in one directions, you may need a directional.

http://www.winegard.com/offair/fm.htm

Remember, height is your friend. Not always, but usually, the higher you can get an antenna the better off you are.

70 miles ... you probably need a semi-directional antenna. That's maybe a bit to ask from a simple dipole, an omnidirectional outdoor, or any internal antenna.

A lot of times on the fringe it depends on which side of the city you are on. Sometimes the perfect broadcast location to a city is, for example, on a small hill to the east of the city. These stations may try to broadcast a majority of their power to the west - so someone living 70 miles west gets great reception, and someone 70 miles to the east, really bad reception.

Once again, height is your friend. The higher the antenna, the better. Given your distance, I would guess a directional on the roof might help a lot. Disclaimer - I'm not an antenna or RF engineer.

I think at 70 miles you need to be looking at a bigger yagi, and not a smaller one.

Do you have line of sight? As in no mountains between you and the city?

If you really want to get complicated, you could research where the FM broadcast towers are.

Try a big yagi pointing south like:

https://www.tselectronic.com/winegard/hd6055.html

No guarantees

Any FM DX'ers on here who could chime in?

Read again what I said about being 70 miles away and needing to use a directional Yagi.

It's just how antennas work man. The ST-2 can be as magical as you want to believe it is, but an omnidirectional whip isn't going to do what a Yagi can. A Yagi is designed to pull in signals coming from a specific direction, a whip is designed to pull in signals from a 360degree circle*. Whips are what you buy when the signal isn't too far away, and you want it to look unnoticeable. But at 70 miles ... don't think it's happening.

About the only thing I could suggest with the ST-2 is ... can you get it any higher? Do you have it mounted up on your roof at the highest point possible? Might as well try, if you buy a yagi you'll need to do it anyway.

That is unless your tuner just plain sucks, or you have some sort of local interference thing going on.

I'd skip that small Yagi all together and maybe try the Winegard hd-6055 I linked to if you're not ready to go for the big mamby jamby APS-13.

Stick it on a mast, just a regular one, so it's about 6' off the top of your roof. Use good cable for the downfeed. Point the yagi so it's pointed directly at the area you're trying to receive.

Wiz

* As opposed to a 350degree circle I suppose

Ummm, not the same.

Do you have it mounted outside? High up?