Boosting FM Reception (for clock radio)

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Boosting FM Reception (for clock radio)

pm

78 posts

Master Geek

#20353 22-Mar-2008 19:55

I have a cheap clock radio and wanna receive good reception in the high FM region eg. 100MHz+.
I don't really want to buy anything but I was wondering if I could get a long cable and hook up the radio's antenna to the TV's Yagi VHF aerial? There are also indoor FM aerials like this:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=22497&doy=22m3
I assume this connects to the pal socket in the wall but how do you connect it to the actual radio?

scottjpalmer

6035 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 792

Moderator

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#118090 22-Mar-2008 20:00

just add normal wire (not shielded) to the existing piece and string it up around the wall / ceiling in various directions until you find where is best

pm

78 posts

Master Geek

#118130 22-Mar-2008 22:42

That was the first thing I did...reception didn't improve much.
I did find one point where it was great but the weird thing was that when I let go the reception went horrible. Touching it in one place made it better again. And that only works when I touch it...
This is why I'm keen to find an alternate high gain source.

richms

29111 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 10225

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#118293 24-Mar-2008 00:05

My clock radios have always just either had the piece of wire out the back. when I cared about radio I modded it with an F connector on the back of the radio with the center going to where that wire went to and the outter shield going to the chassis of the radio part.

Didnt work too well at all till I got a fm antenna on the feed to the antenna system with a proper diplexer, and even then I still had the audio for tv1 coming thru at about 4 places on the fm dial and the audio from 2 and 3 in a couple.

The tuner in clock radios is about 1 step above crystal sets, so dont expect too much.

Richard rich.ms

pm

78 posts

Master Geek

#118366 24-Mar-2008 13:35

richms:

The tuner in clock radios is about 1 step above crystal sets, so dont expect too much.

Sweet thanks.
I won't bother with the effort of hooking it up to the aerials.