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I've got an omnidirectional whip mounted in my attic (no external antennas due to association rules). Works quite well actually I pick up WXPN 88.5 60mi to the south with no problems and a fairly strong signal. My only problem is on my next favorite station WNTI 91.9 about 40mi to the northeast. The signal strength is fine but there is a mountain directly in the line-of-sight to the transmitter and I pick up significant multipath. Only thing I can do to make it listenable is to de-tune by .05MHz which signifcantly lowers the noise but also kicks in the blend circuit to essentially mono.Would an attic-mounted yagi improve the multipath or will it just bring the multipath in stronger along with the signal?
Follow Ups:
IF you can fit one in your attic see if using a rotator is possible, it WILL improve the sound on the alreay good station, as well.MP is destructive of niceness in the sound and of imaging.
FM - FM stereo in particular - and directional antennas - 'go together like a horse and kerridge', and you do know the next line, dontcha?
Did no-one tell you this?
Never heard of the FCC's rulings about your rights to reception, either.
Did you do a search here? at all?
WarmestTimbo in Oz
The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio Scrounger'Still not saluting.'
Read about and view system at:
How would this antenna work out?
have you read up a bit on rhombics?
WarmestTimbo in Oz
The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio ScroungerAnd gladly would he learn and gladly teach - Chaucer. ;-)!
'Still not saluting.'
Thanks all for the responses.Maybe I should have mentioned that I live at the southwestern base of the mountain I referred to. Of course I searched the archives. I was hoping to hear from someone that was in my same situation, made the switch, and could provide details.
One thing you seem to be missing is that I am perfectly happy with the performance I am getting from my omni. I'm lucky enough to be in a very rich FM area with many college/public stations within a few miles. Most come in with full quieting. More gain is not necessary.
I could mount a yagi in the attic but would not be able to rotate it. It would end up pointing either due east or due west depending on orientation. That's why I'm hesitant to waste my time with it.
And sure I guess I could bring in a lawyer to fight the association rules regarding external antennas but that's not an engagement that interests me at this point.
All you have to do is have a copy of the law. I know a guy who did the exact same thing.
meisterkleef wrote, "And sure I guess I could bring in a lawyer to fight the association rules regarding external antennas but that's not an engagement that interests me at this point."I understand and respect your position.
This issue always boils down to who is responsible for maintaining the roof of your dwelling. If you are responsible, then numerous FCC rulings and court cases say Federal Law from the 1996 Telecom Act trumps ANY HOA rules regarding the installation of antennas on your roof.
If the HOA is responsible for maintaining and re-roofing your dwelling, then it's their roof and they can legally tell you not to put an antenna on their roof. However, you ARE allowed to put a small DBS dish less than 3' in diameter AND a small antenna for either a burglar alarm service AND a small antenna for a broadband wireless Internet connection, on either the rail of your porch or on one of your outside windows. There have been no cases that I can find referenced that involve installation of an FM or TV antenna (other than a whip) on your porch railing or window.
I just wanted to make you aware of this because many HOA's where the HOA members own their roofs are aware of the Federal Law but still try and bully their members into not erecting anything on their roof.
I know you do not plan to fight your HOA, but if you own your roof, you have the right to install an FM antenna, a 3' or smaller dish, an antenna for a burglar alarm service, an antenna for a wireless broadband service, AND a big HAM antenna on your roof.
One friend of mine who faced a similar situation in a gated community with really restrictive rules got his HOA to back down by simply showing up at an HOA meeting with a copy of some of the FCC rulings and several court cases backing his decision.
But the clincher was that he also showed up with handouts of what his roof would look like if he installed all of the antenna referenced above on his roof (he PhotoShopped them into a picture of his roof) and he had a second handout of what his roof would look like with just an FM antenna on it. He then told the board they had two choices: We can fight this in court and you will lose (and you'll also have to pay all my legal expenses when you lose), and then I will exercise my right to put up ALL the antennas on the first handout, or we can behave like adults, you can follow the Federal law and I'll just put up the FM antenna (he called it a TV antenna) and we'll behave like gentlemen and avoid litigation that you will lose.
The HOA took the sensible route and let him put up his antenna, but they would not change their written policy.
And they watched him like a hawk ever after and if his grass was even 1/8 higher than allowed by the HOA he got a notice about it, so that is the downside of winning :-(
nt
Then the best advice I can offer is to see if you have access to your attic and see what you can put there.And if you are somewhat of a risk taker, you could always install an attic pull-down door and put an FM antenna on a rotor in this area.
This probably violates the HOA rules, but how often do they actually hire someone to crawl around the attic space above people's units?
JBTW most defendant bodies fold before court happens, by repute.And I am a perfectionist, and a systems analyst.
You are, in a way, luckier than I down here in Canberra, IF a few of those college stations are zero or low processing types, yes?
I have just two such, a national satellite dist'n, 'zero DR compression except PEAKs' 'classical' and a bit of Jazz network plus world mix at drive time PM. The ABC!
Plus a long-running local to Can'tberra 'low-processing' arts/community station (plus - on rare occasion the other community stations). two goodish AM stations (ABC and very libbrul! avec music) wide band audio AM is worth it even for interviews.
there is another option for you with THE sole 'serious' type of indoor antenna, made of plastic sheathed/'paintable'/ HIDABLE fine wire in the shape of a rhomboid.
[ pinned to a ceiling or taped under a biggish rug! its long dimension being pointed 'appropriately' to get you your 'OVER the mountain' station!]
You could discover the app'te angle - 'on the compass' - by borrowing an FM Yagi on appro. And, if 'the' angle - across just one of yr residence' rooms can approach 10 or more feet you can return the yagi - given a tick on SAF front - and save heaps.
what about FM repeaters, any?
and, NB, 'net radio' is usually LOW res!
I use low-res classical downloads and low-res cricket commentary, when I'm on the PC only though.
We just finished - very thoroughly - beating England in 5 out of multi-day cricket Tests, during Summer down here! And, don't say it's boring if you do not know the game ;-)! This has not happened since our summer, of 1920-21!
WarmestTimbo in Oz
The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio Scrounger'Still not saluting.'
Read about and view system at:
Yeah internet radio is pretty bad. Bit rates are way too low for music. And don't even get me started on sat rad. People just don't care about good sound any more, but that's a whole other kettle of fish...Very low compression and other processing for the college and public FMs in the area. My main public station WDIY 88.1 (yes I'm a member!) is wonderful. Very little signal processing and my reception is perfect. When they play music it has often fooled vistors into thinking they were listening to a CD.
I think I'm gonna pick up the cheap Radio Shack 6-element and experiment with that a bit.
Why THE world's lowest pop'n density for a capital city!the BURNT bush capital, too. Set inside a series of bowl valleys right into the Great Dividing Range & Snowy Mountains
WE are in a tiny little area between two large suburban exposed to the west whence firestorms have been thorugh in 2003 (and from the EAST) and will come again
So, my FM 'tenna is an OLDDDD Tandy/Antennacraft 'wideband VHF yagi' covering Ch's0 to 12 VHF! nice narrow pattern and b'all gain!
There's a VHF phased array for CH7to 9 TV and a band IV uhf long Ygai too. And a longish AM 'random' wire tuned with a fixed tap coil and a vane cap.
One big telecom/restaurant/tourist trap/viewing tower on a BIG hill.
NO rotator made could cope with the (scrounged scrap multi-tube) mast and array!
WarmestTimbo in Oz
The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio ScroungerAnd gladly would he learn and gladly teach - Chaucer. ;-)!
'Still not saluting.'
AKA Channelmaster FM-6 log/yagi. I don't think Radio Shack sells them anymore. The FM-6 can be ordered from a number of Internet sources, just google "FM-6 antenna". I have one in my attic it markedly reduces background fuzz noise vs. the vertical dipole omni antenna I also have in the attic. I was able to rotate it by slightly modifying the dimensions of the roof truss beams.
Dale.
Herr Meister
You around Bethlehem/Easton area? You know that on 104.9 you can get the XPN simulcast. Temple is also simulcast I believe the channel you list is the Mt. Pocono signal, in the city it's 90.1.
I'm mid way between you and Philly and would like to be able to get Mulhenberg College, 91.7. Love the Dutchman!
Lafayette college WJRH is 104.9. Obviously I pick that up quite strongly. I assume the 104.9 you refer to is out of the poconos? I don't believe there is a local WXPN simulcast in the Lehigh Valley.I only get WXPN directly from the 88.5 source out of Philly. I have line-of-sight to the transmitter and I get a nice quiet signal. No complaints at all.
The station with the multipath is WNTI 91.9 is out of Hackettstown, NJ and I don't believe they have a simulcast station. They do have an internet feed but man it sounds bad. I don't need more gain for the signal just a multipath filter.
Yeah lots of great college stations in the area plus the publics.
I used to live in Hellertown, right next to Lehigh's saucony athletic fields, in a place called Bella Aqua farm. Those were fun times.Anyway, I still think you have misdiagnosed your problem. I think you have adjacent channel interference from WMUH at 91.7
If you use the radio locator link below, you'll see for you, 91.7 is a stronger signal than 91.9. The stations are only 200kHz apart, and most tuners have standard IF filters that are 280KHz wide. This is why one station adjacent to another interferes with the other on standard tuners.
Click on the "i" link to the left of the station listing, then coverage map, and you'll see the X showing the position of the transmitter. This will give you an idea of the relative position of the two transmitters to your receive location.There are two ways to deal with it. Brute force way is to mod the tuners narrow IF circuit for more narrow filters. I suggest 2 Murata 150's. I assume you don't already have a tuner with ultra narrow filters like an Onkyo T-9090II or Yamaha T-85. Another good one is the Sansui TU-9900.
The finesse way is to use a horizontal antenna to eliminate WMUH. Your vertical omni antenna has no null in the horizontal plane. You do this by tuning the tuner to WMUH and turning the antenna for lowest signal strength. You may be able to use the side null of a horizontal dipole if the two stations are located 90 degrees apart from your receive location. A cheap test could be done by rotating horizontal positioned rabbit ears. If one station is in front, the other behind, roughly 180 degrees apart, you need a multi-element antenna (yagi or log periodic) with a good front to back(F/B) ratio. I suggest at least 6 elements, radio shack sold an FM only model (made by antennacraft called the FM-6) for 25. I think Stark still sells it. The better one is APS-9A for 100. or so.
Bob
Thanks for that link it is a very useful site. But if you look at the coverages, I am actually located right at the border of the local/distant ranges for both stations. So according to the site the two signals should essentially be reaching me at the same level (WNTI transmits at 13x the power of WMUH).I guess it's still possible that it may be adjacent channel leakage but I think the coverage maps suggests multipath even more. I keep WNTI on my narrow setting (25dB ACS in narrow) and it does indeed help but it does not eliminate enough of the noise to make it listenable other than through detuning.
I'll probably pick up one of those cheap Radio Shack 6-element antennas and give it a try since there's not much to lose. If it helps I can go for one of the APS jobs.
That sounds like adjacent or alternate channel inteference, especially if tuning .05 MHz away helps. Or, your tuner is out of alignment. Does your tuner have a switch for narrow IF? If not, a tuner that does may help quite a bit (if this is the problem).You could also try a horizontal antenna, like a dipole, if you still think it's multipath from the mountain. The mountain would tend to affect the vertical polarization part of the signal, which the horizontal antenna would not receive(it just grabs the horizontal part).
The best solution for multipath is a directional antenna with a tight pattern and a rotor. If you have room in your attic install one. I've done a few installations like that with Cornell-Dubilier rotors which can be mounted upside down you just need to reverse the wiring so the direction is correct.
There's a lot of people who know more than I do about FM issues, but none of them has answered yet, so I'll give it a whirl.The signal you want originates 40 miles away. Whether a yagi will limit or eliminate multipath depends on how big the angle is between the line that connects your antenna and the transmitter, and the line that connects your antenna and the reflective source of the multipath. If the multipath occurs pretty close the the transmitter (say, a building or mountain in the same town as the transmitter) your antenna will see both transmitting antenna and the reflector in the main lobe. If the reflection is caused by some source at a relatively large angle, then a yagi should help quite a bit. You may also find that the best elimination of multipath occurs when pointed slightly away from the source, as that may differentially attenuate the reflection.
You could also try using multiple identical antennas arranged so that the desired signal reinforces and the multipath signal cancels.
Here are some more out-of-the box options:
Stick the antenna in a big tree, paint it green, and hope no one notices.
Build a big, ugly radome, and when the neighbors complain point out that its within code and you didn't want to upset people by putting up an antenna. They may relent and waive the rule for you. That way you get what you want and it only costs you a few tens of thousands of dollars for the radome.
Does the station you are interested in netcast?
If you have a friend in the town with the transmitter, put a tuner and computer there and netcast to yourself.
Move to somewhere inbetween the stations you want to listen to.
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