FM Antenna placement, wiring


I've just bought myself a nice big-bucks (hah! $60) FM tuner here on Audiogon. My house is sitting on the top of a hill, although there are BIG trees on all sides I think that's not supposed to matter much. However, I live 25 miles from a college town with a few radio stations and 45-90 miles from Big Cities with dozens of radio stations each. To compound matters, my listening room is in... the basement. And, as you'd guess, reception, well, it sucks. OK, I know I need to have an antenna, and I know it has to be up high. I have a Terk, which does pull in some signal. I think I could arrange to put it up in the attic, where I would think I'd get much better reception. Question#1: what do I use to extend the signal? Can I just take some RJ6 cable and put ends on it? Do I need something to help the signal down the wire?

Question #2 (well, I guess it's #4): Given I cannot mount anything on the outside of the house (my house is on the National Register and we are trying very hard to eliminate anachronistic touches such as antennas), what are my options? I"d like to pick up Washington and Richmond stations if I could. And I suppose I'd be willing, if reluctant, to put an antenna up in one of the trees (65 feeet up?). Is this going a bit too far?

Of course, one should interpret the fact that I only invested $60 in the tuner to mean that my LPs are a ****LOT**** more important to me.
blw

Showing 1 response by newbee

i put stacked directional antennas in my attic. works just fine. i could probably get by with an omni but my stations all came from one general direction and the directional antennas have better signal strength. my experience with the small amplified amntennas are they work best in urban areas where the signals are already strong.