Iffy FM reception

[Shintsu]

I'm at a bit of a loss here, I'm having trouble picking up one particular station on my preamp. The thing is - I have two big extendable antennas which look vaguely similar in fashion to this:

But I have no plastic base, it just has a small peg a the bottom connecting the two and I made a wood block for it to rest in and it is plugged in with one of those push on coax connectors. In total length, I'd say the antennas are about four feet long fully extended each.

Now I've tried wiggling, touching, extending and shrinking, everything short of holding onto one of them and sticking my hand straight up to get a better signal. One station keeps coming in as garble and trash - but it's a reasonably strong signal. It never crackles or hisses in my car. Yet another station which is typically weak and staticy it picks up great with no crackle. I can't listen to the channel due to so much crackle noise. I like listening to the radio from time to time and I particularly listen to this station.

So what can I do to improve the quality? The signal is coming in fairly strong on the signal meter on the front but the sound is bad. The station that is weak has one to zero bars but still has a good sound and isn't too quiet. None of this makes sense to me - any suggestions? Anything I can do besides climb on the roof and mount a huge antenna or something?

 

[TLS Guy]

I'm at a bit of a loss here, I'm having trouble picking up one particular station on my preamp. The thing is - I have two big extendable antennas which look vaguely similar in fashion to this:

But I have no plastic base, it just has a small peg a the bottom connecting the two and I made a wood block for it to rest in and it is plugged in with one of those push on coax connectors. In total length, I'd say the antennas are about four feet long fully extended each.

Now I've tried wiggling, touching, extending and shrinking, everything short of holding onto one of them and sticking my hand straight up to get a better signal. One station keeps coming in as garble and trash - but it's a reasonably strong signal. It never crackles or hisses in my car. Yet another station which is typically weak and staticy it picks up great with no crackle. I can't listen to the channel due to so much crackle noise. I like listening to the radio from time to time and I particularly listen to this station.

So what can I do to improve the quality? The signal is coming in fairly strong on the signal meter on the front but the sound is bad. The station that is weak has one to zero bars but still has a good sound and isn't too quiet. None of this makes sense to me - any suggestions? Anything I can do besides climb on the roof and mount a huge antenna or something?

You likely have another distant station on, or close to the same frequency. The signals are modulating each other, and causing garbage. Your car radio, obviously has a better signal rejection and discrimination, also its antenna is outside. There is an old adage, if you want a decent FM radio buy a car radio!

Unfortunately your only solution is a roof Yagi Uda array, that has reflectors and deflectors. If you want to pursue this I can make some recommendations. I have to say though that if you like FM a good roof antenna is job one for high quality results. I have always used one, and get perfect reception via my Quad FM tuners.

 

[Midcow2]

excellent explanation TLS!

You likely have another distant station on, or close to the same frequency. The signals are modulating each other, and causing garbage. Your car radio, obviously has a better signal rejection and discrimination, also its antenna is outside. There is an old adage, if you want a decent FM radio buy a car radio!

Unfortunately your only solution is a roof Yagi Uda array, that has reflectors and deflectors. If you want to pursue this I can make some recommendations. I have to say though that if you like FM a good roof antenna is job one for high quality results. I have always used one, and get perfect reception via my Quad FM tuners.

See what I mean as usual excellent explanation TLS!

 

[mtrycrafts]

I'm at a bit of a loss here, I'm having trouble picking up one particular station on my preamp. The thing is - I have two big extendable antennas which look vaguely similar in fashion to this:
But I have no plastic base, it just has a small peg a the bottom connecting the two and I made a wood block for it to rest in and it is plugged in with one of those push on coax connectors. In total length, I'd say the antennas are about four feet long fully extended each.

Now I've tried wiggling, touching, extending and shrinking, everything short of holding onto one of them and sticking my hand straight up to get a better signal. One station keeps coming in as garble and trash - but it's a reasonably strong signal. It never crackles or hisses in my car. Yet another station which is typically weak and staticy it picks up great with no crackle. I can't listen to the channel due to so much crackle noise. I like listening to the radio from time to time and I particularly listen to this station.

So what can I do to improve the quality? The signal is coming in fairly strong on the signal meter on the front but the sound is bad. The station that is weak has one to zero bars but still has a good sound and isn't too quiet. None of this makes sense to me - any suggestions? Anything I can do besides climb on the roof and mount a huge antenna or something?

If you want good FM, this may be in your price range, $100:
http://ham-radio.com/k6sti/xdr-f1hd.htm

Also, if a roof mounted antenna is not an option, perhaps one in your attic?

 

[TLS Guy]

If you want good FM, this may be in your price range, $100:
http://ham-radio.com/k6sti/xdr-f1hd.htm

Also, if a roof mounted antenna is not an option, perhaps one in your attic?

To get HD (hybrid digital), you have to get a clear analog signal. In fact the HD signal does not have as good a coverage as the FM.

That iBiquity IBOC system is misbegotten. You can only use 1% of the FM signals power for the HD with minimal interference of the analog signal. That gives relatively poor coverage. The stations however have now been allowed to increase power on the digital signal to 10%. That interferes with the FM signal and how. I have just fought a hard battle over that here and got them to knock it off at least for now.

And to top it all, the highest streaming rate supported by the lousy system is 96 kbs. However they often stream at 42 kbs. NPR research labs have a BS study out claiming their research shows that people can't hear a difference above 42 kbs. However 19% said they could tell a difference between 96 kbs and and CD. Claims are made continuously that this system is CD quality. That is another battle I'm fighting.

I think there is reasonable agreement that bit rates of 196 kbs give reproduction roughly comparable to a good FM signal. However I personally find the problems caused by lossy codecs very unpleasant.

iBiquity are in trouble, and I understand they have just borrowed another $15 million. One silver lining of this economic whatever it is, is that they might go out of business.