Better FM reception?
Hey guys, is there anything that actually works for getting better FM radio reception? There is a station that I love that just barely touches our town. Sometimes it's clear, sometimes it's fuzzy. My Elantra has the shark fin antenna. I've read mixed reviews about the cheapy antenna boosters like on Amazon or eBay. I'm keeping the stock radio. Aftermarket just invites theft around here, and is too much of a pain anyway with adapters needed for the steering wheel controls and back up camera. Suggestions?
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You've already listed my suggestion...a booster.
Maybe you can replace your short antenna with a longer one? |
According to this an FM dipole antenna would be ~38" tuned to the middle of the FM band, but you can calculate a length for a specific frequency. I believe the dipole needs to be at 90° to the direction of the station.
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XM radio.
Where I live when I would go on a road trip on a Friday evening the only thing on any station would be some local high school foot ball game of a small town. In Arkansas it's probably dueling banjos? |
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Replace that tiny "shark-fin" antenna with an old-fashioned sliding vertical antenna...why sliding? So, you can adjust its length up/down to optimize reception of that FM station. Like we did back in the olde'days.
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does the station have online streaming?
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Maybe like this? https://www.walmart.com/ip/4-Pcs-7-S...&wl13=&veh=sem EDIT: Actually, I just measured and there is 43-47 inches, minimum 110cm space along my Civic's roofline, exiting from the former antenna mast mounting point. I could theoretically create an antenna that is flush against the exterior of the body. |
That's a vertical monopole. It would be most efficient mounted in the center of the [grounded] roof.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_plane What is ground-plane antenna? - Definition from WhatIs.com |
I still wanna do something with my AM/FM antenna, but I went ahead and setup my XM radio last night. They had 6 months for only $5 a month, so I figured why not. I don't mind $5 a month, but it'll get shut back off before the price shoots back up to regular. Atleast that gives me 6 months to figure out a better regular radio antenna. ;)
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I just figured out...
The shark fin on the roof is only for the XM radio. The radio antenna is in the rear window. Looks pretty sucky too. I just removed the tint on the rear window. I don't know if it had metallic in it or not, I just don't like tint anyway. I wonder if adding an actual antenna on the car, like cars use to have, would make a difference? I could probably add one of those power up/down antennas beside the trunk and it would look okay. |
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