How to improve radio reception in a house??

[bermich]

Anyone have any tricks or devices to improve radio reception in a house?
Im not talking about coat hangers or lame shit like that. Are there any professional equipment that is out there?

[mass junkie]

Anyone have any tricks or devices to improve radio reception in a house?
Im not talking about coat hangers or lame shit like that. Are there any professional equipment that is out there?

How old is your radio?

[TheMudMan]

Check out Best Buys site and look for antenna boosters or amplifiers.

I guess the tin foil trick doesn't work

[mass junkie]

Check out Best Buys site and look for antenna boosters or amplifiers.

I guess the tin foil trick doesn't work

You beat me to it.........But it depends on how old his Stereo is.....

[partyboynyc]

lay on the roof, wrap my cock in tin foil, and think of a really hot chick...........

[TheMudMan]

lay on the roof, wrap my cock in tin foil, and think of a really hot chick...........

[BUYLONGTERM]

lay on the roof, wrap my cock in tin foil, and think of a really hot chick...........

Last time I tried that, I not only got better radio reception but free cable!!!!!

[partyboynyc]

Last time I tried that, I not only got better radio reception but free cable!!!!!

in the daytime it makes a perfect sundial

[bermich]

Its new. 50+1 cd player. Sony
I have the regular wire untena but it doesnt pick up shit.
Those amplifiers dont work.
I was wondering if anyone knew of a way to boost their reception.
Wondering if those huge polls worked or if there was a way to plug it into cable wire and improve it.

I have a regular portable cd player and that gets better reception than my shelf based.

[Red Ketchup]

Ok, first thing you do is go to Radio Scrap and get a nice roll of RG-6 or RG-59 coax cable. Get whatever adapter you need to plug into your stereo receivers antenna jack

Second thing is that you NEED to get that coax outside the house at the highest point you can.

Third you use a small radio shack TV antenna, but thats overkill. In 99% of cases building a simple dipole antenna will do you fine. (A dipole is that T shaped antenna that comes with most stereo equipment)

Check out this page for diploles... http://www.kwarc.org/ant-calc.html

your dipole would look like this:

wire 2.44ft wire 2.44ft
-----------------+----------------
connect to | connect to
coax braid | center connector
.... |
.... coax
.... to the
.... radio


You can mount this horizontally, or if you put it inside a 5ft long PVC pipe it can be mounted vertically for better results.

Red
(who happens to be a ham radio operator and plays with antennas all the time... will the geekyness of the BB's here ever cease to amaze!)

[TheMudMan]

Ok, first thing you do is go to Radio Scrap and get a nice roll of RG-6 or RG-59 coax cable. Get whatever adapter you need to plug into your stereo receivers antenna jack

Second thing is that you NEED to get that coax outside the house at the highest point you can.

Third you use a small radio shack TV antenna, but thats overkill. In 99% of cases building a simple dipole antenna will do you fine. (A dipole is that T shaped antenna that comes with most stereo equipment)

Check out this page for diploles... http://www.kwarc.org/ant-calc.html

your dipole would look like this:

wire 2.44ft wire 2.44ft
-----------------+----------------
connect to | connect to
coax braid | center connector
.... |
.... coax
.... to the
.... radio


You can mount this horizontally, or if you put it inside a 5ft long PVC pipe it can be mounted vertically for better results.

Red
(who happens to be a ham radio operator and plays with antennas all the time... will the geekyness of the BB's here ever cease to amaze!)

You have to be one of the smartest bro's on here...............

[bermich]

You have to be one of the smartest bro's on here...............

I know. He always has the answers to all the obscure miscellaneous stuff on here that no one else would know.
How to build a quantive phase reduction modulator from scraps of tin foil and egg shells. RK would have the diagram sitting under some papers on his desk.

[Red Ketchup]

Ack my ASCII art sucks monkey cock....

Here is a GIF of what it should look like

[Da Bull]

Last time I tried that, I not only got better radio reception but free cable!!!!!

LMAO......

[Da Bull]

I know. He always has the answers to all the obscure miscellaneous stuff on here that no one else would know.
How to build a quantive phase reduction modulator from scraps of tin foil and egg shells. RK would have the diagram sitting under some papers on his desk.

You guys have me in tears............ROFLMAO

[Red Ketchup]

You guys have me in tears............ROFLMAO

Me too! You guys slay me!

Besides if all these tons of mostly useless knowledge and trivia stuck in my head can help a bro, then this pointing monkey laden caveman is happy!

Red

[bermich]

Cant I just wrap my house in tin foil??

How do I splice the regular antena wire to the coax cable without interfering with the coax insulation? Am I just focusing on the copper wire? I know that when I fuck up the coax wrapping while splicing the cable connector, I dont get any cable reception. Is this the same for radio frequency or does it not matter?

[Red Ketchup]

Matters, but a lot less in this case... The important part of the coax is on the radio side... connector must be good there. At the antenna side, we often just cut off the connector and solder directly to the coax center wire and outer braid.

A good trick is to solder a 2.44ft lenght of any kind of wire to the center connector of the coax, another 2.44ft lenght of wire to the outer braid (foil in cheaper coax, actual braided metal in better coax) of the coax.

Then you enclose where the coax meets the wires in a 35mm film canister. Once you checked it all works, then you fill the canister with silicone (bathtub caulking stuff) to make sure no water gets in. String it out vertically or horisontally and enjoy better reception.

An even simpler antenna which may work just as well if you got a decent radio signal outside the house is to simply remove the last 2.44ft of braid (foil) on the coax and stick it vertically oudside at the highest point you can safely get to.

This would give you half the antenna described above (the first one I described is a half-wave dipole antena, this woulf be a quarter-wave antenna), but for FM radio reception it'd probably be enough.

Red

[bermich]

Whats with the 2.44 Is that an exact or is it just for referance? Does the length affect anything? If longer, wont it increase reception or does it not matter?

[Red Ketchup]

The lenght affects everything bro...

Radio waves going thru the air are of a certain lenght. Lenght is proportional to the radio frequency. The higher the frequency, the shorter the lenght. This is why your car radio antenna is usually 2.4 feet as it tunes in 88 to 107 mhz, whereas your cellphone antenna is merely inches as it tunes in 800 or 1900 mhz.

A 96mhz radio frequency has a lengh of 9.76 feet. In order to "catch" those radio waves, you want an antenna that is 1/4 of the lenght of the wave (2.44 feet in the case of 96 mhz, I won't go into why you want 1/4 of the wave).

If your antenna is "in tune" with the frequency (meaning the right lenght) it will receive the radio broadcast you want to listen to much more efficiently.

Hope this helps

Red

[Tock]

www.ccrane.com
They've got stuff to improve your reception . . .

[Nixter]

If you get one of those old cable attachments that connect your cable to an older tv which just has those 2 screws for an antenna, you can connect your live cable to your stereo's antenna connections. You'll get great reception as well as all sorts of new stations.

Works great for FM, not sure about AM.

Nixter.

[Money Boss Hustla]

I run coax from my cable outlet to an adapter and then into my receiver. I can get stations all across North America.

[Red Ketchup]

Plugging into your cable outlet will work if and only if your cable provider offers FM radio brodcasts (many do as it takes up very little bandwidth).

Here in Montreal, the cable company does offer this service and you get a whole bunch of FM stations from all over.

Red

[bermich]

Thats awesome. Thanks guys.