Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo FM Antenae's

Does anyone have any experience with those powered antenae's? I tried one a few years back and I was completely unimpressed with it, so I returned it.
Now, in my new house, Im having just a little trouble with reception in the basement. Shopping for one of these, it appears as though Terk is the only brand out there, and they make a wide variety.
Thanks for any opinions.

Dan

dmw,
I've had a few of the Terks through the years, some free from friends, the last one I bought. All of them seemed to work pretty well.
The one I have now is easily 10 years old, so I have absolutely no idea what kind of advances they have come up with since then, but this one was at the bottom of their line-up back then, and it does a good job.
It is one of their Wasington Monument shaped things, about 14 inches tall.
The only thing that none of them were ever able to do for me was pull in AM signals, and they were all AM/FM pieces.
Oh yeah, I live in a pretty hilly area west of Charlottesville, with some good sized hills between me and the towers.

You might want to consider getting something like the FM yagi antenna radio shack sells, its something you need to mount on the roof, attic, in the yard or whatever and its directional so if you listen to multiple stations from different directions it may not work well but im confident you'll get much better reception with it than with one of those little powered jobs.

My basement "system" that keeps me entertained while puttering or planting over 1,000 seeds consists of Paradigm Titans (grills removed) and a 1970's Viking receiver (what the hell is that? I can hear you all say)

I got a simple dipole antennae from RadioSlack, strung it on the joists and it's bringing in excellent FM reception, cost about $8 Cdn.

"planting seeds in the basement??"

just what exactly you growing up there buddy?

and do i need to bring any munchies?



bigjohn

Hehe. Are one of those folks in BC I've been reading about who are changing the main export there?

jr

where are my cheetos and soda? Why is my mouth so dry? Am I being paranoid? Am I? No, really. Am I being paranoid? You'd tell me if I were right?

Nothing very exotic, or illegal. About 10 tomato plants, 10 pepper plants, some misc flowers and veggies and about 800+ impatiens plants. Yes I do have a place with a bit of shade.

Even with all that I still have to buy some plants.

one of my buddies was tilling up a small section of his yard this past weekend to put in some seeds. he had already put down some round-up to kill the grass, and was in the process of cutting in some fertilizer with the soil. he said his parents garden had done very well the last few years, so he is gonna give it a shot. unfortunately for him, about 1/3 of the section he will use is gonna be shaded by the house in the afternoons, so he has been trying to find veges that will do well in shade. thus far, he will be planting:

tomatoes
squash
onions
okra
radishes
jalapenos
cilantro
and various herbs like dill/basil/thyme/etc.

i am curious to see how his garden turns out cause i might like to try it myself. i love me some fresh tomatoes!

bigjohn

Trying to get back on topic:

Garlic does fine in part sun as well but it makes a terrible FM antennae.

I really used to be into FM when there were more good stations to be heard. One of my earliest purchases (I was probably about 19) was this Kenwood Tuner:

Man, I loved that thing. This all seems so foreign to me now to even try to remember, but it had IF wide/narrow controls, an output on the back to tune via oscilliscope, a really nice feeling flywheel, and the perfect face lighting at night. Stupid, stupid me for selling it. Wish I had it now.

My parents house was on the water in Rhode Island, and I had this thing hooked up to a roof antenna on a rotor. I'd sit there at night like a shortwave guy with headphones on, noting these cool stations I could pull in from Connecticut, NY (especially Long Island straight across the water) Boston and the North Shore, Cape Cod.... it was great. This was the late seventies/early eighties when there were "album cut" stations out there that would play the greatest obscure stuff at 3AM....

I have an FM antenna in my attic now, but the Denon Receiver and the Cambridge Soundworks clock radio I have had it hooked up to aren't the same. FM tuners just outright suck in comparison to what was out there 20 years ago. I remember Stereo Review basically throwing their hands up and saying the same thing maybe fifteen years ago... everthing they reviewed had only a marginal tuner in it...