Indoor aerials
Posted by: Rockingdoc on 18 June 2001
Phil
I'm on the top of a hill and have an unobstucted view of Wrotham, so the signal should be melting my inputs.. That's why I thought an indoor might do. I have tried a circular omnidirectional with poor results.
I will certainly try the DIY route too.
I really want a Naim 01 but results with my Leak and Quad FM3 are so poor that I can't make the leap of faith, as a home dem seems unavailable.
Also, does anyone know whether digital (DAB) would make an expensive analogue tuner an unwise buy now. I'd be interested to know how much Naims sales of the 01 have dropped.
[This message was edited by Rockingdoc on TUESDAY 19 June 2001 at 09:49.]
[This message was edited by Rockingdoc on TUESDAY 19 June 2001 at 09:50.]
I use a aerial made from cooking foil its a 4'3" square made from 11 or 12" wide foil one side leave a 1" gap and connect the coax across the gap works very well.
pete
Is this stuck on your window or pasted under your wallpaper?????
Must invite a few comments from visitors, I suppose you do get visiting time?
I'm still going to try it. Did you just fold over the corners to keep the foil intact, or is it cut and stuck together somehow?
Its up in the loft so no one can see it 
but you could wallpaper over it.
pete
quote:
but you could wallpaper over it.
Wouldn't that affect the VSWR? 
Andrew
Andrew Randle
2B || !2B;
4 ^ = ?;
I wondered why my reception got worse when I papered over it with foil backed wallpaper
pete
I'd try a straight dipole, or just a simple 2 element if you can.
The other problem can be too much signal - my NAD402 needs attenuation as without it one can hear distortion, even though it's fully quieting.
Try fulling the antenna plug from the tuner so the center loses contact , with the outer still made - you may find an improvement. In this case an attenuator may help.
The circular omni's are worse in this respect since they pick up more multipath, which is often a bigger problem than signal strength.
The other thing to try is rotating the circular antenna still make a difference, their receive pattern isn't even.
Andy (G7KPT).
P.S. use good cable, the satellite types (CTxxx) with double screening (foil and braid) are best.
Andrew L. Weekes
The stereo decoder which was fitted to the Leak by Graham Tricker (600 GBP, including full overhaul ) gradually changes from stereo to mono if the signal fades, like the Naim I think.
[This message was edited by Rockingdoc on FRIDAY 22 June 2001 at 10:36.]
I was in a high-end Kentish emporium yesterday asking if they had any exotic tuners I could dem. (not my usual home dealer). They said they weren't bothering with FM tuners any more as "It was being switched off in five years". They offered to get in a DAB/FM hybrid for me to hear, but admitted that it was crap because of the poor digital source.
Check this out!!!!!!!http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns222535
Its enough to make you cry, they seem to have F**ked it up big time, again!!!.
pete
quote:
The problem will not be easy to cure: broadcasters must either take much more care in producing their digital radio programmes, reduce the number of channels they transmit, or change the transmission standard.
For shame!
Any one of these will do and all three would be marvellous.
Reading onward we learn that 'most people can't hear a 15Khz bandwidth' nd s th problm is bsclly dwn t lssy cmprssn.
Martin
I have been told that the BBC promise never to apply dynamic range compression to their digital broadcasts, which is a very good thing. The problem is that the much touted bandwidth efficieny of DAB is only applicable when each transmitter's frequency allocation is fully utilised. This is why the final bitrate chosen for the transmissions is lower, each transmitter can only cope with, if I remember correctly, 6 full bandwidth transmissions.
To add more stations one has two choices, reduce bitrate (read quality) on other broadcasts, or build a new transmitter. If adding just a single extra station building a transmitter that can transmit a large number of broadcasts, but is only transmitting one is inefficient in terms of cost and bandwidth allocation.
It's a fatally flawed concept that is mutually incompatible with greater diversity of quality broadcasting.
The main benefit of DAB was an elimination of the effects of multipath, in my opinion a 'problem' that wasn't perceived by the average consumer.
Do yourself a favour, buy a reasonable analogue tuner and just enjoy it's limited bandwidth sound. It's the best and one of the cheapest musical sources I know, and has introduced me to music I've never heard of yet have thoroughly enjoyed.
Andy.
Andrew L. Weekes
Indoor portable FM is very poor, involving much messing about with aerial angles. It is easier to get good reception of tv from a little indoor antenna. Perhaps Crystal Palace FM can interfere with Wrotham?
One last question to you wireless experts.
Determined to hear decent radio before I die or go deaf, I have reviewed the situation.
I could have an outdoor aerial but it would involve a 20 metre cable run, as opposed to 1m indoors. Does the cable loss negate the advantage of a SMALL outdoor aerial?
[This message was edited by Rockingdoc on MONDAY 25 June 2001 at 15:52.]
FWIW, I live very close to my local Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC Radio 1 and 2) transmitter and get superb results with a Magnum Silver Ribbon on NAT 02. Haven't tried the SG-2 whip antenna, as of yet, but I wonder if its omnidirectional receive pattern wouldn't lead to multipath problems with such a strong local transmitter.
Craig
Malcolm