Want to connect your DAB / FM radio or tuner to an outside aerial? In this video, I talk about fitting an F connector to your radio and running coax to outside dipole antennas for FM & DAB. www.radio-workshop.co.uk/
Great info. Thanks for the bit of UK radio history. Growing up in the states in the '60s and '70s short wave and CB's provided a lot of entertainment. I'm now getting back into the hobby and it's channels like yours that remind me where we've come from.
6:34 Spot on! If digital (DAB) was sposed to be so much better than analog, why pray tell do we need an outside antenna! I've had so much digital crammed down my chute for so many years now. Digital is a farce! Enjoued yer vid, mate. 73
Hi Ray, I enjoyed your video - took me back to my childhood days (1950's) - down at the scrapyard, picking through the old radios (valve) to gather sufficient parts to build my own - The aerial was always the awkward bit - my mum didn't like me running wires all around the curtain runners!!! Grew up (well older) and moved on to become a specialist telegraphist - and spent 10 years using the old RA17's. Even had a chance to stand in for the Radio Officer on a cross channel ferry - great fun.
Thanks Ray. Grateful for the class. You are probably an electronic's teacher of sorts. I also enjoyed looking at all of your shop equipment. Cool stuff brother.
I’ve recently got back in to radio in my late forties, especially short wave, remembering tuning around on my grandfathers set as a child. After trying to gain some knowledge on countless RU-vid videos I stumbled on your channel and seemed to have learned more from you then the rest put together. I’m very much enjoying your videos. Spencer. Southend, Essex.
Just by coincidence, I also had the chance to share the AM DX hobby with my grandfather. Ar that time, my grandfather was in his 80's. In his early years, he told me that he had strung antenna wire throughout his house in an effort to receive 3LO Melbourne from Sydney on a crystal set. When he did hear 3LO on the crystal set on one occasion, he had all his neighbours visit over to his place to witness the event.
Thanks So much for info on FM aerial/antenna's. Simple little tips like Coaxial inner wire on the top, and braided on the bottom. Things that may seem elemental are to this beginner are vital hints. Setting up a basement shop radio, and needed a proper antenna. Finally decided to go with an Omni-directional dipole from Amazon. Thanks again, best, Kevin
I came across an old, unused band 3 TV aerial in a loft of a house I was rewiring a couple of years ago, the home owner said I could have it, it is a monster, about 9 elements and was used to receive 405 line ITV channel 8 from the Lichfield transmitter, I put it in my loft and with new coax, my DAB radio is picking up clearly Liverpool & Welsh stations 90 miles away with ease!
Intresting vid, especially about sealing the connection box on the antenna, I installed a 3 element FM aerial on the gutter board of our house, near Portsmouth way back in 1989, sealed the box with silicone & that aerial is still in use today! It picks up all the stations from the Isle of Wight transmitters ( Rowridge for the BBC & Chillerton down for the commercial stations), plus various other local and not so local ones. Also in the summer with the right weather conditions I can often receive Stations from afield & France too. I use a Sony Hifi tuner with a handy feature - it has 2 FM aerial input sockets, switchable from the front control panel, so I can if need be connect a different aerial. On the subject of DAB, I've got a similar Roberts radio that has that removable cover on the back , although I've never unscrewed it, I'm not a huge fan of DAB radio, mainly due to the low bit rate & poor sound quality of many stations now, even the newer DAB plus ones don't offer much improvement in audio quality, my next kitchen radio may well be an Internet one, although I often stream stations from my phone to various Bluetooth speakers anyway.
interesting about that bit of orange wire. I've just been restoring a 60's compact valve radio. I was getting a bit of distortion/sibilance on FM and I'm in the attic room. I was eyeing the circuit, maybe an alignment issue. Then I had the idea of throwing some wire out of the skylight. Didn't have any coax so just used some house wiring cable. 10ft outside, just lying on the roof and 10 ft inside. It's not entirely eliminated the sibalance but certainly improved it.
Thanks for the fine video Ray , thumbs up I like all your videos . I prefer analog radio on medium wave, for example, absolute radio (Moorside Edge) on 1215khz here in the Ruhr area (in Essen near Düsseldorf) with my Grundig ocean boy 3000 is on the windowsill. 73 Uli ( DK6DV )
Hi Ray, I was interested in how you handle the 2 signals from both antennas and using a switch to change between the FM and the DAB signal. A simple solution is to use a 2 way "F" splitter and reverse it. That is, to connect the 2 incoming signals on the "output" side of the splitter and antenna cable to the receiver on the "input" side of the splitter. This combines both of the signals onto the single cable. You can do the same with FM and television signals onto the same antenna feed.
Last year I installed a very "simple" outdoor-antenna for FM on the balcony of my flat in a skyscraper (10th floor) here in Germany to get a good signal into my Yamaha HiFi-receiver, after they switched off FM broadcasting via broadband-cabel... I'm lucky to have over 30 FM-stations here (more then before via BK), but inside the skyscraper-flat half from the opposite direction of them are shaded by the massive building (especially my favorite Rock-station that's 180 degree behind the building). I go best results by just installing a SIMPLE Lambda/2-"wire", also VERTICALY (which is not optimal, but receives all around). I feed the coax through a window-adapter flat-coax to the inside, and mounted the coax through the baseboard to my stereo. Sometimes a few stations have little static (depends on the wheater), but most of the time I get nearly ALL of them in good Stereo+RDS! :)
Yes I was merchant navy R/O then with the odd Marconi valve transmitter. With my hifi tuner much prefer FM vhf to DAB; It feels as if the musical instruments are more naturally spread out particularly with live transmissions.
Most dab radios now don't seem to have the f connector on the back whereas 15 years ago nearly all of them did. Maybe the manufacturers think it's no longer required in UK. with stronger signal strengths now prevalent.
I used to have a round folded aerial for pole mounting, I wonder what happened to it? I used it once and took it down when I moved but I have not seen it since! I bet it would have worked fine for both without any problems. I don't have a chimney on this house, that is a bit annoying! I pt a pole up on my shed for a dish, but I should have made it longer, but when the dish was mounted, they put it so near the top that I can't extend it a bit to hold other antennas. Bit annoying, I wasn't here when they did it so I had no say in it, but I will put up another if I find a scaffold pole lying about somewhere. They used to lie about everywhere, but I never see any these days! Shame, I might even have to buy one lol. Nice to see you here Ray once again.
I was hoping to see a home made diplexer built for both ends of the cable! You can actually just use a dipole cut for 100MHz and it will work fine on 88-108 and DAB for what most people need at home. You can feed that in to a distribution amplifier. Saves having two aerials.
DAB signals are weak here so I need a dedicated DAB antenna. I can’t use a distribution amplifier because, being a radio amateur, I pump out a lot of RF. The amplifier would probably be affected. I do prefer dedicated aerials.
An excellent step-by-step breakdown - this video is going to help many people to tackle the job ! One question that I have which you can possibly advise me on. If I add an "F" connector to the back of a radio, do I need to add an isolation capacitor between the centre pin of the "F" socket and the radio's "antenna" connection ? If so, what sort of value would you recommend ? A rewarding video to watch - many thanks !
I've got separate antennas for DAB and FM and I have a combiner right at the antenna end of the co-ax cable and it works just fine ! My antennas have about 7-9 dB of gain
Thanks for the really informative video, I have a question, I have bought a small pocket dab+ radio for work and instead of headphones I have a 3.5mm jack on both ends of a 2 ft lead, one in the radio one end in a small powered speaker it works fine but suffers from dropout every now and then, can I use a longer connecting wire as I know the aerial is this wire and gaffa tape it to the wall in a vertical manner so as to recieve a better dab signal like you mentioned in your vid, ps im no expert in this field as you can probably tell, many thanks.
I actually had to look up DAB. Digital Audio Broadcasting. If I had one or two more brain cells working I could have figured it out on my own. Wikipedia says it's mostly a European thing where HD Radio is used in North America. Japan, the Middle East, most of Africa and all of South America don't use DAB either. Whew!.. For a moment there I thought I was living under a rock... BTW, my new Mini-Whip antenna works well on FM even though it's really rated for HF frequencies and not VHF. Saved me from having to climb my roof anyway.
DAB+, AM, FM in Australia. DAB+ found mostly around the capital cities. AM is still important because once you get into the outback then it is the only thing you can pick up. Then there are large areas where you can't get anything except at night.
Ray I discovered a youtube video put out by one of Radio Caroline's staff they are the ones behind the dab radio in the UK and a couple of places on the continent each transmitter is home brewed with low pass cavity filters custom made from italy with linear amplifiers from Australia if you can pull in their transmitter from the main motorway that runs through the center of London. In the video description they posted a website dedicated to their DAB network service looking for volunteers to put up a dab aerial and transmitter at their location so they can expand the service and the other night here across the pond were I am i pulled in 1368 am medium wave manx radio from isle of man I think they run around 50 kw's and are undergoing much needed transmitter replacement and aerial upgrades reminded me of when I was a younger lad listening to kiss 103 Vhf fm belfast when Barry Marsh aka Miles Johnston and Andre Van' Os aka Robin Ross Dj. Satin with 1 mega watt pirates of course we used to hear them from Long Island New York all the way up the coast to Nova Scotia They main transmitter Valve is at the new Crowborough facility on display in the Lobby I think they transmit Sunshine radio and maybe Classic fm from their. Ray you may be able to tune in 87.7 vhf fm radio carolines micro fm station broadcasting from the docks of Harwich from the former lightship now pirate radio ship the lv18 I hear from south end wharf with a good pair of looking clases you can spot the Ross Revenge down river of the boat yard in Molden and the lv 18 upriver in Harwich when the docks are clear of the cruise ships.
Thanks very much. Some time ago I bought my Labgear dab aerial from Screwfix, looks very like what you have there. I think coax came as well from Screwfix. All seems to work very well. How can I check coax for 75ohm, it is marked " RGS9 SH12" best I can make out.
Thank you Ray. I'm wanting to do the FM antenna mount in the attic. This is a 2-story house with an attic so I have some decent elevation. Same guidelines?
Hi. Thanks for the video. I got the same package from Digitalisdirect. It comes with only 1 x F connector. But my DAB radio (hifi separate) also needs an F connector. So, my question is "do I need to get another F connector for the connection inside the house as well. The coaxial connector is unnecessary?
Ray a good point on grounds. But I do not know this would work with many new dab radios that have an external power supply. These as you know have floating power and are not directly connected to ground. I am not a huge fan of dab radios but they are getting better. I still listen to radio 4 on long wave.
The radios might be getting better, but the broadcast bit rates seem to be getting worse and worse, when you think of the brilliant high quality stereo VHF you used to get in the 70s and 80s compared to the audio quality on DAB now. I'd skip DAB and go straight to internet radio and then if you have wifi around the house (plug in wifi repeaters are cheap) then you have a high quality portable radio with much more choice and no outdoor aerials to wire up.
Hi Ray, thanks for sharing another interesting video. I am not sure how well DAB DX performs here, as I don't own a DAB receiver, apart from a tiny pocket one. However, digital TV tends to lose channels, when there is thick cloud or rain happening nearby. I am guessing that DAB may have similar problems during bad weather. With the bad static increasing on AM radio, outside aerials may even be soon needed there as well. For FM reception, I use a Matchmaster outside antenna horizontally polarized on a rotator. This also prevents unwanted local FM overload, when checking for DX. Anyway, take care and all the best. Rob.
@@g4nsj, Many thanks for your reply. Your DAB aerial was purchased from digitilisdirect, likewise do you recall which shop in eBay it was purchased from. Did you see any brand name on it so I can do a search on that brand name. Could you please also recommend a masthead amplifier for VHF and DAB, I live in Watford, Hertfordshire and wish to tune in stations from Crystal Palace. I have individual cables for digital television, VHF and DAB running from aerial. You also mentioned in the video that you neither share cable nor use combiner. Many thanks.
@@walter.d8166 I think the FM dipole was second hand from eBay, many years ago. I know nothing about mast head amps, sorry about that. I've never used one. Cheers, Ray.
Hi I’m just looking at buying some new hifi speakers my receiver puts out 65 watts per channel at 8 ohm . I want to run a pair of bookshelf speakers and some floor standing speakers my question is what wattage should i be looking at buying ? The receiver can run two pairs of speaker. Love watching your video’s and hope you don’t mind me asking this question ?
Great video I wonder if you can help. My old stereo has a "+" & "-" areiel connection on the back, not a round TV style RF? Type. I have been given a indoor areiel with the round connection. How can I adapt it? Thanks
Whathave you done with the two downfeed cables (FM & DAB)? The tuner has only one F connection? Did you use a combiner/diaplexer? Would the diaplexer be fitted at the mask head or at the FM/DAB radio end? My location is High Wycombe, BUCKS, so no signal problems. I already have a digital TV aerial for my Freeview TV box which is aligned on London (Crystal Palace I think); It has a good signal quality, I presume this cannot be used for my separate FM/DAB radio?
Hi and thanks for your informative video.I fitted a 75 ohm coax socket to my Grundig DAB radio ( all I had) which hasnt been much use since I moved house. It doesnt like the chassis being connected to the ring of the socket and prefers it left off.Can you explain why this is and will it be a problem when I eventually get my dab aerial installed.It works with a conventional TV aerial after testing.Can I connect the ground to the chassi via component?Thanks
Hi Alan, to be honest I don't know why that should be. Connecting the outer of the coax to the chassis should be fine. Try using a capacitor between the chassis and the outer ring of the coax socket. Perhaps a 0.0uF or something.
I saw a RU-vid posting last year about a home built DAB aerial made from just the coax. You take off around 300 mm of the outer plastic. Then you push the screen back on itself until it is covering the remaining plastic screening for 300 mm. Tape it down and mount it vertically. So the backfolded screen is anti-phase to the protruding inner core, producing a balanced aerial. Have you herd of this? It has improved my DAB, but not cured the dropouts totally. Can you suggest something better?
Radio Workshop Great video, I just Subscribed. I'm in Australia, can you suggest a good FM/AM radio, perhaps the one you showed from Ron in Australia please.
Hey Ray, I live in the U.S., not sure I am familiar with the term DAB. Is it a digital mode or something we in the states just call Internet - or Cel signals?
You in the U.S. only have IBOC/HD-Radio, which is just a further side-carrier on top of a regular analog FM station that carries digital data-streams - nothing special here with the antenna (VHF Band II, 87.5-108 MHz). DAB+ here in Europe is a separatr digital-only standard for radio broadcasting, that also can carry multiple digital AAC-compressed audio-streams. It ist standardized to use the VHF Band 3 (174-230 MHz), that earlier has been used for analog PAL-B TV-transmission. It also keeps the old channel-spacing of the earlier TV-channels (VHF 5-12 here), and breaks them further down in quarter (A/B/C/D). So you just need a VHF-3-Band antenna to receive those channels properly. FM runs independantly on VHF-2. So you have to deal with two different antennas (VHF3 about half the wavelength of VHF2), and even (mostly) 2 different polarisations (FM mainly horizontal here, DAB mainly vertikal).
I have a 4 Element DAB VHF Aerial and would like to receive a signal from Verwood. I l actually live in Durrington, Wiltshire and can't get a signal from that area. Is it possible with the aerial in a new position?
Would it be feasible to for a second inside aerial to the outside aerial to carry its signal INTO the house, then use the radio's UNCONNECTED aerial to pick up radio signals from IT ? Would this allow moving the radio about the room or house ? PS. You do a great job. .
@@g4nsj I KNOW You can do better than that. "Set up properly" ? As in HOW ?? I have a Mobile Phone booster for indoor use, though this is powered. Could the outdoor aerial signal be boosted through the indoor aerial ? Isn't there an Internet booster that does something similar ? .
Fairly recently I set up an external antenna so I could receive a decent signal from the FM community radio station I manage, about 20 KM from where we live. My initial experiments used an old TV "rabbit ears" type antenna spread out so it was set up as a vertical. That worked really well, but for the final setup in a different location on the property I got the best signal by putting them in a V configuration, basically how you would typically deploy rabbits ears on a telle! Now my question to you is that although these rabbits ears are nothing more than two telescopic rods, they are connected to a short piece of 300 ohm ribbon feeder and then into a balun before going through my coax into the radio, this being a surplus car radio set up as a base receiver. Should they actually be terminated with the ribbon feeder and the balun? Since they are not a *folded* dipole wouldn't they match better directly into the 75 ohm coax and give a better signal that way? Or, since I have them set up in the "V" configuration does that change the characteristic impedance of the antenna, making it more like 300 ohms, hence the ribbon & the balun?
I wish that our American Digital Radio standard Called HDradio was as popular here as your DAB standard is there in the UK. It would also be nice if the FCC would tie the new ATSC 3.0 standard to Digital Radio and allow digital TVs to receive Digital radio and smart car head units to receive Digital TV.
Can't agree more about going backwards in this day and age. But I stayed till the end because of your very typical English mannerisms; words like barmy etc just make me laugh.
