This worked a treat! I didn't actually solder anything or use heat shrink stuff. Just twisted wires old school and used electric tape til I can get to the hardware store. Thanks for a clear, concise and extremely helpful video. You're a prince among men!
I was just about to purchase an fm antenna and came across your tutorial. I found what was needed in my odds and sods and followed your instructions. It works perfectly. Thank you. Des.
I just built that antenna and it worked amazing! I used to own a somewhat expensive plug on am/fm antenna device that didn’t work nesr as well as this thing.
Followed your instructions to the T and after nearly a year of having my shop receiver set up. (Tried a few old school botch job attempts at fabbing one and figured my tuner may have gone bad) I stumbled upon this video and now after snaking it through the steel sheeting and attaching it on the outside wall with magnets im getting stations i didnt know we had. I never incorporated any coax cable, just the end, had no idea about the 75ohms. I was surprised how the wires really needed to be extended to the full length to get the best results. Thanks again! This is what youtube is all about!
For anyone asking about how long the coax should be, it doesn't matter. It is shielded, will not affect signal, so it can be any length. the actual place where the antenna starts is where the two wires are connected. Spread them opposite ways and there you go.
@@12voltvids Yes maybe... 300,000,000Hz/100,000,000= 3m. 1.5+1.5m will be perfect for 100MHz frequency. The 300million Mhz is light speed. Is it right? And, Lambda value was a Quarter. That is 29.5 inch x 2
IT WORKS!!! I've been trying to receive a local station which broadcasts with a 500 watt transmitter for the last two years. Tried every type of antenna I could find...no luck. I spent an hour making my antenna based on these dimensions and I can now receive this station and many others with a strong, stable signal! Thanks much for all of your videos! Regards, Dave
This is exactly what I needed! FM reception is somewhat poor where I live, and the receiver would often fallback to mono sound. The piece of wire "antenna" that came with the AV receiver does not make much difference.
OK so here's my story for what it's worth. I made this antenna in desperation after the FM reception in my shed took a massive nosedive *all of a sudden* (I'll come back to that). I figured that my issue was related to the old antenna, so I was devastated to spend the 10 whole minutes of my life making a new one only to find out that it didn't improve the situation at all, no matter how I positioned it. I started to think about what has changed in my shed setup and I remembered a week or two earlier that a gecko had crawled into the PSU of my shed PC before I turned it on. He shorted some components and sadly cooked himself alive and destroyed my PSU so I replaced it (ANTEC) with a spare one (EVGA) I had lying around. It turns out that this EVGA PSU is my issue all along - as soon as I toggled the power switch on the PSU the radio sprung to life with gusto... My efforts weren't in vain though because I am happy to report that the reception with the 12voltvid antenna is much better :)
@@seanwatts8342 Damnit, I still didn't make one, she's not been able to use the stereo because someone else is living in the house, I will try to report back
@@Jonas_Keunecke The connection on the back of the stereo will determine what kind of antenna to use... 75 ohm or 300 ohm (normally.) It's not too complicated since you are _not_ making a transmitter antenna.
@@seanwatts8342 Thanks Sean, I will check for the back of the tuner, but it's got a connection for the cable radio I'm pretty sure as he talked about in the video (just re-watched it). I am in europe though, so not sure if that still applies, thanks to you two for the advice
Fantastic video Sir!!!! I can build a shopping center but I have no idea what gigahertz and such things are. I've been fighting with a AM/FM radio in my steel shop building and I think I'm going to apply what you just did here to it. I'm thinking mine's going to have to go through the wall and outside because of the steel building, is that correct? Also I think I'm going to have to use a splitter because I don't have coaxial connections on my radio, I'm planning on taking the radio apart and catching the wires going to that antenna and putting them onto my DIY antenna. Once again thank you!
So, the piece of cable is for matching the 75ohm impedance, while the two wires are just an open dipole? Or can I connect the dipole wires directly to a coax connector?
Am radio that worked fine. I had a 100 foot wire that went from 1 chimney to the other across the roof then down into my room using stand off insulators and i picked up the world on am and shortwave.
If you hang the antenna vertical its recieves the best signal. This is because fm signal are send trought vertical dipole. So the radiowaves will recieve better in recieving antenna being in vertical position. Greets
F connectors for FM radio. Interesting. In NZ, it's co-ax plugs like our tvs. The only time we see f connectors is set top boxes like satellite receivers from the LNB
North America uses mostly f connectors for residential and bnc for commercial, like cctv and broadcasting. Also, just like our "wonderful" electrical system, you can get a very good zing from the connector if you're not careful and the signal is amplified.
You seem like a guy that knows his stuff. On the back of my Marantz ST 500 tuner. I have twin 300 OHM screw mounts and a single 75 OHM screw mount. I have been using a 300 OHM balun and some coax to connect my antenna. Which is a single wire. If I was to use the 75 OHM single connector would I merely twist some twin lead speaker wire together then create a dipole. Thanks for any help
I have a slightly different problem. Sony sells a 2 channel Receiver that has a proprietary input for a dipole antenna they provide. I have a great coaxial aerial that I prefer to use instead of their dipole. Is there any way using their proprietary input and cutting off the rest of the dipole and then attaching an adapter which I can connect to my coaxial aerial?
same problem here, I have a stupid sony stereo with a single wire antenna and a coax exterior antenna and I'm trying to figure out how to connect them together.
Those Terks seem like a pieces of junk. I was willing to spend much more for something that would work really well. It turns out that the type of antenna shown in the video works as well as I can hope for. I use mine and it works very well. The only possible improvement would likely be a roof antenna.
If you made the coax the same length as the first wire and omitted the second wire, wouldn't the shield act as a second wire or is it too close to the other conductor?
Hello. I'm connecting an old Kenwood system. The tuner, tape, and receiver are in great shape. For the fm antenna, it just has a loop antenna but not sure where to connect the 2 fork type connectors. the options are fm 75 ohm, gnd. loop amd am...
I have an old Pioneer SX-550 Receiver. It takes 300 and 75 ohm antenna, however it does not have a female coax. It only has the twin lead terminals. I know that sounds weird, It would be easy to explain if I could send you pictures and the manual. My question is, if I buy a 75 to 300 converter, do I plug into the 75 terminals or the 300 terminals?
I have a kenwood kt6005 and there is also no female coax and I am also curious how to do this. I bought some Best Buy antenna thing that had two go to the 300 and two other for AM and ground but I don’t know if I did this correctly, I don’t know much at all about my Kenwood
I'm going to try this with my SDR receiver dongle. It comes with a stock "rabbit ears" style antenna but I bought some adapters to adapt a regular F connector to the smaller coax used on the SDR so I can use my old antennas for my TV. Hope this works better. Also why 29 inches? Does length not matter when receiving signals only transmitting?
I like your video and all that but here's what I'm dealing with the connector that you would use to hook up speakers with a little push tab that when you put in your wire and release it and it squeezes The Wire not the connector that you're using but I still have a 75 ohm requirement on it
Looks like you're using 18AWG, but I guess it really doesn't matter? I've gone through about a dozen comments and nobody else seems to be asking this question. The reason this seems pertinent to me is because, as you're well aware, different gauge wire has different resistance. So 29.5" of 18AWG is going to have different resistance that say 20AWG or 22AWG. I kind of assume if it mattered you would've specified in the video, but being OCD, I thought I'd ask. . Subscribed!
2 piece 29.5 inches to make a 59 inch antenna. you can use 3/8" diam rods if you want something more stable. Screw the centers to a flat piece of ply or similar. Especially excellent if attic mounted.
I have this system, and I use a digital indoor black rectangle 25 mile range antenna to an indoor amplifier, but I notice if I unplug the amp, there's less white noise. Weird right?
You are amplifying the background noise too. If its on a station while doing that it might be getting overloaded causing noise. Sometimes amplifiers can cause signal issues, just something you have to test sometimes
Back in the 80s we used to use this technique to make an "emergency dipole" for CB radio. That was for 27MHz so we basically stripped back 9 feet of the braid of RG58 (50 Ohm) coax and sort of rolled it back over the outer insulation, then attach a standard PL259 connector to the transceiver end and a few feet of string with a small weight to the other, then if you were stuck out in the country you could just throw the weighted end over the branch of a tree and you were in business.
So is that 30" with aluminum shielding on rg58 or rg6? And should it be wrapped to make a horizontal wire? Or is it okay to pull the shielding back over the outer plastic covering for a FM antenna?
I have a small Radio I listen to outside my mobile home, FM station 102.1 which is approx. 100 miles away, and my radio only has a extendable antenna with NO cable connection. Is there any way I can use a clip on the antenna you made to clip on a regular pull out antenna to enhance my reception?
Took an 8 X 8 X 1/2 thk piece of plywood, drew diagonal marks from corner to corner, had a 60 inch piece of 3/8 " plastic tubing, drilled a big enough hole in one side so both wires would come out the center hole and run down the tubing both ways horizontal. Then soldered the 1 wire to the center wire of cable and used shrink tube to mate the other wire to the wire mesh to a coax cable and ran it down the center of the other diagonal, soldered a clip on the center cable wire and clipped it on the extendable radio antenna. Put a mounting clip on the top of the wood so as to hang it as high as I can. Seem to worked fine on the radio, but won't know for sure till I try it out in the morning, but it worked fine in the evening. I need to get a longer piece of cable to mount the "T" unit higher. Thanks a lot for the instructions. I love RU-vid and the people who show us how things are done.
Hi guy, I watched your video on FM antenna build, my problem is; out in my garage I never had good FM reception to start with but after my neighbour & I switched-out the floresent lights for LEDs now its very a static single!, would this help if I had the antenna above the leds?
I have a receiver with a 75ohm fm connector that’s just like a spring fit speaker wire connector and a fm ground with spring fit connector. It looks like the original antenna is just a plain wire I think it is it some special wire that’s 75 ohm ? I heard speaker wire is 300 ohm ? What’s the best way and best wire to use ?
Actually radio is polarized vertically, so the antenna wires need to be vertical .. not straight out. Advantage of polarizing vertical is that it receives signals from all directions. And thats why radio antenna on cars and portable radios have 1 telescopic element sticking straight up. But TV is polarized horizontally .. so it has 2 legs that stick out in both directions, and thats why portable TVs have 2 telescopic elements that need to be horizontally. THe advantage is that is that it is only sensitive in the direction it is pointing so doesnt pick up noise signals, disadvantage is that you have to point it at the transmitter .. so thats why the TV antennas on roofs are all pointing in the same direction.
You can't. It was a fairly short lived endeavor. It began some time in the 80's if I'm not mistaken . However, it has since been phased out. With the unforseen explosion of internet based streaming services cable FM broadcast radio haa gone the way of the 8-track tape. It was still clinging on in a very few markets in the early 2000's. But I'm fairly certain it's been 100% discontinued.
I thought channels 14-36 were in the same frequency range as FM radio. But I just looked it up, and it's actually just the high 90 channel numbers. I guess that partly explains why I don't think I've ever seen those high-numbered channels used in practice on analog cable.
Yup! Think of it like how digital cable now carries a bunch of the stations. Back in the day we could split the cable so one end went to the TV (or, I'm going to date myself) a converter box, and the other to the home stereo Let's just say it made the band incredibly crowded, but it was a nice way to listen to AM or out of market stations before streaming or digital cable was a thing
I'm very grateful for your video. I'm just wondering about details regarding the 2 wires you attach to the coaxial. (1) Is the gauge/thickness important, (2) and do we need to strip off their insulation ?
The gauge is not important no it's just a receiving antenna. Obviously you have to strip the insulation off where you make the connection between the antenna wires and the coax but no you don't have to strip it off the rest of it.
Many thanks. I've found that attaching just one 31-inch wire to the coaxial and hanging it vertically down the side of the window the reception is perfect on the only FM station around here at 107.5, right at the end of the scale. Funny - I have iron security bars on the windows (but not a jail !!!) and when I hung the antenna outside the bars, I got a lot of hiss. So I brought it back in.
@@brianhazlehurst2152 metal will reflect the signal and cause multipath interference. This is why people that live in Stockwell houses and have high efficiency windows have so much problem with their Wi-Fi. They're quick to call their internet provider and scream and bitch that their internet sucks and in reality it's the way the house was built. I love telling people sorry there's nothing I can do you'll have to move if you want better internet speeds. been to people's homes where they've got access points every couple feet and they still can't get half decent internet over Wi-Fi. I explained to them that the wire mesh behind the stucco on the wall and large metal appliances and the air ducts in the wall and the thin metallic film on their high efficiency window makes her house like a giant Faraday cage or in this case a giant microwave oven. Signals are bouncing around inside and arriving at the antenna at a slightly different time causing errors which need to be retransmitted which slows their internet down. they usually threaten to change internet providers and I say go ahead knock yourself out still be dealing with the same problem. Or go buy yourself your own router and find that it's exactly the same. For those people in those type of homes they have one solution and that's plugged their computer in to an internet cable if they want any type of speed.
It would be best to make the length according to the frequencies you want to listen to. Most FM broadcasts range from 88 to 108 Mhz. To calculate the length make for the midway point ie about 98Mhz. Find the quarter wavelength of 98Mhz which is 2ft 4.7 inches. Make the lengths half that and attach as shown.
@@coastmansingha9980 In metric units: divide the speed of light = 300.000.000 m/S by frequency (100.000.000 Hz). This equals 3 meter. To obtain a 1/4 lambda antenna divide 3 meter by 4, which is 75 cm (about 29.530 inch) This is an approximation. The frequence may be a little different and the speed of light in air is not exactly equal to its speed in a vacuum; nor is the speed of the signal transmission in the copper wire. For the extreme values of the FM band, you can add or substract 5 cm (about 2 inch). Which can be done easily with a telescopic antenne.
@@1959Berre Wow. Remember I am not the original poster on this subject I was only trying to help. So by all means take the piss. Its not an exact science you can pick up radio signals on a any piece of wire.
@@1959Berre Do of course take into consideration the phase of transmission, either horizontal or vertical. Most FM broadcasts are horizontal but what the hell. Suck it and see
@@1959Berre Having looked at your RU-vid channel I see you are a professional Tosser with 14 subscribers. You must be very proud and maybe living in a care home. My sympathies & best wishes with the treatment. 👏
It would also work for North American VHF TV stations. Unfortunately with the digital phaseout those are pretty much gone. Most digital ATSC broadcasts are actually in the UHF band.
Yes, *BUT* you'll need to look up the new frequencies for what digital channels you want to watch. You do NOT need to buy a specifically made 'digital antenna.' The good thing is a home made digital TV antenna is MUCH smaller and easier to move around.
Hello. Question! Is this going to work for a radio scanner? My scanner's frequencies are *25-88mhz*, *108-174 mhz*, *225 - 512 mhz* and *806 - 960 mhz*. Will this DIY antenna cover any, if not, all of these? Thank you.
For receiving any piece of wire will work. For a scanner however the antenna should be hung vertically. It is cut for the 88 - 108mhz band however. A discone is a better broadband design for a scanner.
@@12voltvids Got it. Would a DIY antenna like this one secomms.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/1385lrg.jpg from a TV Antenna wire or copper or aluminum work for me? Do you have any videos like this one for a discone antenna? Thanks.
Long wire antenna at least 100 feet long. Stand off the antenna from walls ext and up and over the roof. The ground side to the building ground or a ground rod.
@@12voltvids Cool thank you! What do you think about a large wire wound antenna? I seem to remember diamond shaped ones from back in the day. Something on the order of what came with fairly late model receivers only larger. Maybe much larger. Can't always run a long wire which is why I'm asking. How well might a large wire wound antenna perform? Is there a particular size that's best? Diamond vs square matter? etc etc etc......
@@sargetester99 I would go for each cable being half of 29.5 inches ie 14.47 inches. Its the overall length that matters Basically you are tuning it to the FM Broadcast frequencies which usually lie between 88 to 108Mhz. Hope that helps
I would think probably not much difference, if any, for the fairly short lengths here. It matters more for longer lengths like you would use for an attic mounted or outside antenna. The following is from the manuals of 2 late '80s/early '90s tuners I have: JVC - Generally the coaxial cable suffers from more loss than the flat parallel feeder when they are the same length. The flat parallel feeder, however, is more liable to pick up noise. YAMAHA - Flat ribbon-shaped twin-lead cable performs well electrically, and is cheaper and somewhat easier to handle when routing it through windows and around rooms. Coaxial cable is more expensive, does a much better job of minimizing interference, is less prone to the effects of weather and close-by metal objects, and is nearly as good a signal conductor as feeder cable, particularly for foam-type coaxial cables. Coaxial cable is somewhat more difficult to install at the point where the cable enters the building. If coaxial cable is selected, make sure the antenna is designed to be used with that type of cable.
Use a piece of regular speaker wire. Zip it apart to the same length for the antenna side and the other side connect to the 2 screw terminals marked FM 300 ohm.
@@sblaze4 the type of wire doesn't matter. 300 ohm is the 2 terminal connection and 75 is coax. With 75 ohm you have a single antenna lead and ground. With 300 ohm connection both wires are active. It is a balanced connection.
Cable systems used to have FM on it? Too bad it doesn't exist anymore, because now in order to get music over cable, you have to rent another cable box and tune to one of the music channels
They did indeed. They still do, but they are digital channels tuned by the cable box. In Canada initially we got all the local and distant FM stations. The distant stations were on original frequency. The local ones translated to a vacant spit to reduce interference. In the 90s the CRTC ordered that the cable systems also had to carry all of the local AM stations on the FM dial this displaced some of the out-of-market FM stations as the band was full. We got the local AM stations on the FM cable band in full stereo which sounded great. Around 2009-2010 when all the analog TV stations went dark the cable companies started upgrading their cable system to full digital and all the analog TV signals went away by 2015 at the same time all of the analog FM cable signals were also removed and that spectrum which would have been where channel 95 to 100 would have been on the cable band was reallocated to digital TV signals. Today if I were to hook an analog TV to our local cable TV carrier there would be one channel visible Channel 2 and all Channel 2 has on it is a display of a spectrum analyzer presumably so field technicians when tracing down interference can look at the spectrum leaving the head end on an analog TV and compare it to the spectrum on their spectrum analyzer. The competition that I work for is all fiber distribution digital TV and internet and phone all on glass.
@@12voltvids Lots of fond memories as my father was a cable tech in Halifax & Calgary back on the day. Heck, back then the local cable company was called Calgary Cable TV/FM
Screw on connector cause ingress and regress. I used a compression RG 6 fitting and received more channels. I also added a small amplifier with a tilt screws for low band and high band control. The tilt really help the low band channels. I was a head end tech for a telecommunication company 30 years. The amplifier is hooked up backwards. The input to amp is from the antanna. The out put of the little amp is going into the radio. Great antanna.
