[CLM in ND]

Back in the early 1990's, when I was first buying stereo components, I
tried several different kinds of amplified FM antennas. There wasn't
anything wrong with the antenna that came with my receiver, but I
wanted "the best", as some catalog or sales guy said I should. I tried
Terk & a couple of other brands. They were all crap. All they did was
increase noise. A friend of mine said all they do is amplify noise. I
only lived a couple of miles out of town at that time, so maybe they
work better in extremely rural areas, where it is hard to get a signal.
But I haven't found anything better than a run-of-the-mill dipole
antenna or a rabbit ears TV antenna for good, quiet FM stereo
reception.

Cameron

[Richard Amirault]

"CLM in ND" wrote ...
Back in the early 1990's, when I was first buying stereo components, I
tried several different kinds of amplified FM antennas. There wasn't
anything wrong with the antenna that came with my receiver, but I
wanted "the best", as some catalog or sales guy said I should. I tried
Terk & a couple of other brands. They were all crap. All they did was
increase noise. A friend of mine said all they do is amplify noise. I
only lived a couple of miles out of town at that time, so maybe they
work better in extremely rural areas, where it is hard to get a signal.
But I haven't found anything better than a run-of-the-mill dipole
antenna or a rabbit ears TV antenna for good, quiet FM stereo
reception.

And your point is?

Any rf amplifier will "amplify noise" is that is what you are feeding it
with your antenna. You need a good antenna that is away from any local
noise sources and a good feedline to feed your amplifier.

You want a "good" FM antenna. Get something that mounts on your roof.

--
Richard Amirault N1JDU Boston,
MA, USA
n1jdu.org "Go Fly A Kite"

[JANA]

Amplified antennas generally increase noise. The ideal way to improve
reception is to have a proper antenna to begin with. If there is poor
reception to begin with, then the noise content in the signal will be
amplified along with it.

Once you have a good clean signal, you can use a high quality RF line
amplifier to distribute it. If you are using a single or only a few
receivers and the wire length to the antenna is not very long, there is
normaly no need to amplify the signal.

I found that these small amplified antennas that are on the market are just
a gadget to make someone a few dollars.

--

JANA
_____


"CLM in ND" wrote in message
ups.com...
Back in the early 1990's, when I was first buying stereo components, I
tried several different kinds of amplified FM antennas. There wasn't
anything wrong with the antenna that came with my receiver, but I
wanted "the best", as some catalog or sales guy said I should. I tried
Terk & a couple of other brands. They were all crap. All they did was
increase noise. A friend of mine said all they do is amplify noise. I
only lived a couple of miles out of town at that time, so maybe they
work better in extremely rural areas, where it is hard to get a signal.
But I haven't found anything better than a run-of-the-mill dipole
antenna or a rabbit ears TV antenna for good, quiet FM stereo
reception.

Cameron

[CLM in ND]

Richard Amirault wrote:
"CLM in ND" wrote ...
Back in the early 1990's, when I was first buying stereo components, I
tried several different kinds of amplified FM antennas. There wasn't
anything wrong with the antenna that came with my receiver, but I
wanted "the best", as some catalog or sales guy said I should. I tried
Terk & a couple of other brands. They were all crap. All they did was
increase noise. A friend of mine said all they do is amplify noise. I
only lived a couple of miles out of town at that time, so maybe they
work better in extremely rural areas, where it is hard to get a signal.
But I haven't found anything better than a run-of-the-mill dipole
antenna or a rabbit ears TV antenna for good, quiet FM stereo
reception.

And your point is?

Any rf amplifier will "amplify noise" is that is what you are feeding it
with your antenna. You need a good antenna that is away from any local
noise sources and a good feedline to feed your amplifier.

You want a "good" FM antenna. Get something that mounts on your roof.

--
Richard Amirault N1JDU Boston,
MA, USA
n1jdu.org "Go Fly A Kite"

I'm sorry if I didn't really have a point; I guess I just wanted to
know if anyone else has had similar experiences. A friend of mine had
an old set of rabbit ears up in a tree outside his house & got a
fantastic signal. It seems kind of funny that you can spend hundreds
of dollars on a good FM tuner, but the cleanest, clearest signal for FM
I've ever received has been from a 99 cent dipole antenna.

Cameron

[CLM in ND]

JANA wrote:


I found that these small amplified antennas that are on the market are just
a gadget to make someone a few dollars.

--

JANA

Well said. That's the conclusion I came to 10 years and a few dollars
ago.

Cameron

[Dave Platt]

In article . com,
CLM in ND wrote:

I'm sorry if I didn't really have a point; I guess I just wanted to
know if anyone else has had similar experiences. A friend of mine had
an old set of rabbit ears up in a tree outside his house & got a
fantastic signal. It seems kind of funny that you can spend hundreds
of dollars on a good FM tuner, but the cleanest, clearest signal for FM
I've ever received has been from a 99 cent dipole antenna.

Yes, your experience is a fairly common one. FM tuners and receivers
tend to have a lot of gain available to them, in their RF and IF
circuitry and their discriminator. An external amplifier isn't likely
to do much better, unless it's a fairly exotic beast with a very low
noise-figure (e.g. a GaAs part, or supercooled). Unless the external
amp's noise figure is appreciably better than that of your tuner's
front-end amp, all you're doing is adding more noise.

It's much better to get more signal into the system by using an
antenna that's up in the clear. If your signal is being affected by
RF noise generated by nearby machinery or electronics, or by multipath
(reflections), then it can help to use an antenna which is more
directional than a simple dipole... a log-periodic or Yagi-Uda can
help a lot. These will both increase the strength of the desired
signal, and reject interference with comes from directions other
than those of the desired transmitter.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

[Don Pearce]

On Tue, 26 Dec 2006 02:42:16 GMT, "Richard Amirault"
wrote:

"CLM in ND" wrote ...
Back in the early 1990's, when I was first buying stereo components, I
tried several different kinds of amplified FM antennas. There wasn't
anything wrong with the antenna that came with my receiver, but I
wanted "the best", as some catalog or sales guy said I should. I tried
Terk & a couple of other brands. They were all crap. All they did was
increase noise. A friend of mine said all they do is amplify noise. I
only lived a couple of miles out of town at that time, so maybe they
work better in extremely rural areas, where it is hard to get a signal.
But I haven't found anything better than a run-of-the-mill dipole
antenna or a rabbit ears TV antenna for good, quiet FM stereo
reception.

And your point is?

Any rf amplifier will "amplify noise" is that is what you are feeding it
with your antenna. You need a good antenna that is away from any local
noise sources and a good feedline to feed your amplifier.

You want a "good" FM antenna. Get something that mounts on your roof.

Few people seem to understand that the purpose of an RF amplifier is
to compensate for losses in the coax, and then only provided it is
located at the antenna end - it does nothing at the receiver end of
the cable. If the receiver already has a decent noise figure, an
amplifier can do absolutely nothing for it by way of curing a poor
signal.

d

--
Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

[Steve Stone]

An outdoor antenna with quality RG-6 or better coax does wonders for FM.
Add a rotor to home in on the transmitter tower and null adjacent channels.
Add a quality mast mounted pre amp with a better than average signal to
noise ratio like the Channel Master 7777.
Or spend $150 on a super low noise pre amp from a guy in the UK.

A quality tuner is only as good as the antenna system that feeds it.
Your mileage may vary

[Damon Hill]

"CLM in ND" wrote in
ups.com:

But I haven't found anything better than a run-of-the-mill dipole
antenna or a rabbit ears TV antenna for good, quiet FM stereo
reception.

There aren't many directional FM band antennas left on the
market. Several examples can be found he

http://www.starkelectronic.com/fmpage.htm

Even a very high gain directional antenna can cause
problems--with too much signal. I found in practice that
a rotator and a switchable attenuator was necessary in
my suburban locations. If your present setup works for
you, stick with it. Simple is best.

--Damon