Tuning in an FM station isn’t the same as tuning in an AM station. That’s why, when you have a reception issue, the first thing you’re usually asked is “Which band or station are you trying to receive?”. FM transmissions are line-of-sight. That means that obstacles between you and the transmission you’re trying to receive can block the signal and leave you with poor reception on your radio. A hill, a coliseum, big buildings – all these things can get in the way of your FM reception and even leave you hearing the effects of multi-path interference. You get multipath interference when a signal meets an obstacle of some sort, such as a mountain. Depending on the broadcast strength, the signal might get absorbed or reflected by the mountain. Due to these issues your radio will end up with poor reception as the different paths taken by the reflected signal arrive at your receiver at different intervals.
Fortunately, multi-path interference usually happens when you’re in your car, so it tends to be pretty easy to overcome by finishing your drive around a city loop or the base of a mountain. Still, some people might experience all kinds of radio interference at home as well. That’s where a better antenna might do the trick.
Most portable radios have a whip or telescoping antenna that works fairly well when the radio is set close to a window and away from sources of significant interference. However, if you always have the whip antenna fully extended, you may not be getting the reception you’re expecting. Sometimes you’ll get better reception for a certain station when the whip antenna isn’t fully extended.
Occasionally, pulling in the cleanest signal is accomplished by trial and error. You can experiment by extending the antenna to different lengths and also pointing it in different directions (if the radio’s antenna is designed to rotate, of course).
If playing around with the antenna or moving the radio around doesn’t improve your reception as much as you like, you may need to move toward a more powerful indoor or outdoor antenna. An outdoor directional antenna, also known as a Yagi, is a powerful option. A Yagi looks like a rooftop TV antenna and is ideal for tuning in distant stations and for reducing multipath interference. By aiming the Yagi at the signal you want to capture, you can tune out most types of interference – be it from competing signals, buildings or a weak signal. It should be mounted above roof tops.
Another alternative in outdoor antennas is an omni-directional FM antenna. Though omni-directional antennas might not reduce interference as much as unidirectional antennas, their ability to pick up stations cleanly from all directions make them a good choice for overall reception.
If you don’t have access to the outside of your building, you might want to go for a good dipole antenna. These T-shaped antennas offer pretty decent reception indoors and are easy to hide if necessary. C. Crane carries the FM Reflect-2 dipole antenna.
There’s often confusion around how to connect an external FM antenna to a radio that doesn’t have external FM antenna jacks. We’ve created this diagram to give you an idea of what these jacks might look like.
Whichever antenna you choose, be sure you’ve tried some basic things first. Sometimes just switching to mono rather than stereo, or putting a portable radio in a different location, can improve reception. You might also be lucky enough to improve your reception by just attaching a simple wire to the external FM antenna jacks. If these quick and easy solutions don’t work for you, or if you can hear a signal in your car but not indoors, you may want to consider one of the antennas mentioned above.
i occasionally use the fm reflect antenna i purchased fro ccrane.
I use a piece of stripped 16 gauge wire and run it around the top of the room then wrap it around the antenna it works pretty good for a jury rigged set up
What can I do, if anything, to allow pickup from a local FM station when there is some kind of interference in my building’s walls? The reason I think there’s something in the walls is that I receive the station perfectly in my car’s radio, but as soon as I enter the building’s garage it goes kaput. The inside radio has a small antenna wire protruding which I can move around. I have also tried a dipole antenna, which makes no difference.
Penny, is your building stucco by any chance? All the stucco is placed on a wire frame that encases the whole building exterior. I lived in a stucco covered apartment and had lousy reception albeit not any reception al all. If your building is not stucco, I am not sure what else may be doing it. Good luck finding your problem. Sounds like the solution will have to be an antenna placed outside a window.
If it is possible, the first thing to try is placing the radio in or near a window to see if you can receive the station you want. Do you know what the building or garage are constructed of? It may end up that you need to install some sort of outside antenna in order to bring in the signal from outside the interference.
i also remove metal objects near the radio so that the sound waves are not blocked. When I’m using headphones wire to be my antenna, I make sure it is not twisted or tied together for better reception.
I am in a signal dead zone. Same as the last post is thier any way to improve radios with just a single wire.
I have to use my work tunes radio now to get stations indoors every since I started with U-verse . ATT checked & cannot find any difference with u-verse hooked up or not , but problem started as soon as installed (am & fm)I am saving for a C Crane enhanced reception radio.
Thanks for the helpful info
I run antenna wire along TV mast increasing signal strength and reception………
Multipath signals combine and cancel to produce nulls and areas of signal strength which can be very broad or very narrow.
Moving an antenna just a short distance can have a dramatic effect on signal strength if your antenna is in a very narrow null (hi-Q null).
What is even more amazing is that these nulls can move from day to day and from minute to minute. For example, the object causing a reflecting signal could be a large piece of metal on a building. On a windy day, you may experience a fluttering null. Again, moving the antenna, or receiver with the antenna mounted on it, just a few inches can have a huge effect.
However, if there are many nulls in a given location, then you will continue to experience varying signal strength. The only way to fix this is to move the receiver/antenna far enough away from the area with multiple nulls.
An aside:
Some people have experimented with an electronically controlled diversity antenna. Basically, the diversity system has two receivers listening to the same signal from different vantage points. At any given time, electronics chooses the audio from the receiver producing the strongest signal. Even this approach doesn’t completely eliminate multipath issues, but it reduces the frequency by over 80%.
I have a Sangean HDT-1 radio. The FM Reflect Dipole Antenna I purchased from C. Crane has solved the FM reception problems I had on this HD Radio. This is an excellent indoor antenna and very easy to hook-up and locate in the room.
We got our first FM radio in the 1960s, when I was a kid, and my father used to do all the fiddling around with antennas, wires, moving the radio, etc. you described to get it tuned to the stations he liked. He used to tape classical music from the two classical NY City stations, and sometimes from a couple of college radio stations. Reception was often terrible, and we always thought it was because the power and telephone lines run behind our house and interfered with the signal. We are also out on Long Island in the Levittown area. Sometimes the radio would pick up interference from airplane pilot chatter, ham radio operators (one lived right next door), and even the motors of cars driving by. We seldom got a pristine, clear signal with no interference. I still have trouble with the radios in my house, and discovered on my own that I could improve the signal by pushing the telescoping antenna back in a way, or by aiming it in another direction. I always thought that, by now, FM signals would be relayed by satellites, thus eliminating the flaws of the line-of-sight process. It’s disappointing to me that FM reception is still in the dinosaur age.
Very difficult for me to bring in some FM signals from Buffalo NY since we live below the Niagara Escarpment. Nothing like a huge stone wall to block radio and TV signals 😔
All good suggestions but I have s conundrum. A Bose Ljfe Style home theater that has a difficult time picking up FM signals in the same location that my CC portable and Sangean portable and table top both get excellent reception. Bose has no answer. I assume that they jut don’t have the advanced circuitry that other brands (radio only) provide the consumer.
In a small city or in the country where the terrain is not flat , it becomes difficult to receive distant FM stations. What is the best antenna to receive an FM station that is about 50 miles away and there is not flat terrain between it and me? Thanks
I’ve reviewed with a couple of our techs and their recommendation would be an outdoor antenna. If the stations are in all directions there are omni-directional antennas that will be best for this application, if you are only after stations that are in one direction from your location, then a directional or yagi style antenna will be the best solution. While we no longer carry them, WineGard http://www.winegard.com/ makes some fine outdoor antennas as does Fanfare http://www.fanfarefm.com/products#!__fm2gant. One of our techs has some personal experience with Winegard’s Outdoor model HD6010 or the directional HD6055P. We hope this helps.
This was a terrific and informative article about FM reception and solutions / trouble shooting. I appreciate augmenting my education with more knowledge to improve my life. Thank you, C Crane!
Thanks for the helpful tips on FM reception.
I have tried rabbit ears and standard dipole antennas, as well as a simple wire. They help, but location of the radio and the antenna are more important than the type of antenna. And some radios work well without an external antenna. I have the CCrane 2E, a GE Superradio (the first one of the classic series) and a Panasonic RF2200. This are all touted as superior for FM reception, and in my experience they deserve their reputation. They all get our local Classic music/NPR station without an added antenna. My other radios can’t get the station unless positioned somewhere where I don’t want them and then require an antenna.
an analog vhf tv antenna works well since the fm bands are in the middle of the hf spectrum, can mount a small one in the attic. 300 ohm lead is used with these antennas. try rabbit ears from a thrift store.
I have noticed that computers, wireless routers and light dimmers can influence FM as well as AM radio reception. With all the man-made airwave pollution of late, shielding for radio equipment becomes increasingly necessary in enclosed dwellings. 73.
Put the antenna as close to the window as possible
Replaced my twisted speaker wire antenna with the FM Reflect Dipole Antenna and noticed a much better signal. Love my FM!
” … I’m just like a grounded antenna … I just need to move around go get better reception when listening to George Noory on Coast To Coast AM every night … love your information for us to use … thanks a lot !!! “
Great info! I have the C Crane skywave radio and the reception is great
I’ll position my telescoping antenna so that it touches the metal frame on French doors in the summer right next to my easy chair, and could sometimes get a boost in reception.
We use the C. Crane FM Reflect antenna with our Sangean WR-2 tabletop radio which is in the back computer room. The Bose Wave radio in the kitchen does not have an external antenna but has always received stations quite well.
I use an FM Reflect Dipole Antenna (purchased) connected directly to my Stereo and it seems to work fine!
I am in an FM poor area. My FM system is an older Sony stereo receiver and an old dipole antenna. As long as I have the antenna spread and fully extended I get pretty good reception. I know if the antenna is out of place (thanks kitty) because the reception goes to poor or nil. I am thinking about a small tower (15-20 ft) with a decent outdoor antenna.
I live in a very hilly area. An omni antenna that looks like a TV antenna works for me. It connects with coaxial cable and a 75-ohm adapter to my Bose Wave Radio. The sound on “old” TV service is in the FM band.
I’ve tried some pricey antennas and haven’t found anything that works better than a simple–and cheap–dipole. Thanks for the suggestion on how to hook a portable radio up to a coaxial cable!
I just use the antenna that came with my CC Radio and the reception is pretty good. Thank you for the tips.
For radios with whip antennas: RG-8 or other quality 50 ohm coax cable. Cut & peel back the shielding so you have abot 40 inches of the center wire conductor showing bare metal. This will be the signal receiving part. Keep the entire cable it long enough so that it can reach & be placed as to hang about 5 feet outside your window (or along an upper wall inside). On the end closest to the radio solder or crimp the center conductor wire to an alligator clip & clip that to the whip antenna. I can pick up rock music stations 50 miles distant in stereo clarity. Without the wire antenna the same station is received in very fading in & out fuzzy mono.
I have homemade dipole made from 75 ohm coax and I have also made a 2 element yagi FM broadcast receive antenna that is made from old tape measure and PVC pipe scraps that works great for directional reception.
When I was younger I used a 9-Volt battery. I hooked the positive terminal via wire to the antenna, and then the negative terminal also via wire to the ground on the radio. This made the FM station, KLOS, clearer in Los Angeles. The radio, an old Radio Shack radio with weather bands on it, was all anolog. The radio was located in my bedroom on a nightstand halfway between the door and the window.
Thank you for valuable information.
Just set up my new CC Gozo. Just read the article on improving FM reception and by playing with the extension and orientation of the whip antenna I’m now getting a crisp signal from my favorite (underpowered!) local college station. Thank you C Crane!
I wanted to hook an older AM/FM tuner to some speakers at the indoor parking garage I manage. We did that but the radio was not coming in well on the FM band. The building is made mostly of cement and re-bar and the office where the tuner is located is on the first or bottom floor. So, we took some simple stereo wire and hooked one end of the 2 sheathed wires to the back of the tuner at the appropriate antennae jacks. The other ends of the 2 wires were attached at different points to an exposed water pipe in the ceiling of the office. I was told that the building, in effect, becomes the antennae when it is done this way. It worked most of the time. But, sometimes the station was coming in and out. So recently I decided to try taking the tuner off of ‘stereo’ and just putting it on the ‘mono’ setting (I notice this is also suggested in the blog above). That seemed to help as well.
I don’t usually have problems with FM reception, but I do have an amplified FM antenna that I hook up to my receiver. This antenna does make a big difference.
I find using the extending antenna in a horizontal position works for my location. I live 50 miles from FM stations but live in the snadhills of NC without many obstacles in the signal path. I also use a “T” antenna on my component FM tuner and have no problems with reception, time delay or any other interference.
The only issue I’ve evr had is with cheap radios. The Solar Obsever I bought from CC Crane works like a charm…other similar radios I’ve had were less than par.
My next purchase from CCCrane is gonna be the plain jane just a radio unit…..I’m a minimalist and love the design and simplicity….
Frank Davis
I’m using speaker wire for my FM antenna and the C.Crane Twin Coil Ferrite for AM reception. My apartment is an underground bunker:-)
I use all three types of antenna’s in my home with my portable radios,and home stereo roof top antenna.
I love my FM Reflect antenna which I purchased some time ago. Works great!. Please enter me in the drawing.
Jack Carpenter, Tampa.
Thanks
I have an aftermarket amplified FM antenna on my home stereo setup. When the power is out and I’m using a portable FM radio, I’m out of luck since I live at the base of a hill.
I have building interference problems; big city, many high rises. Different stations are stronger in different rooms. The FM dipole works to capture the signals in one room at 90 degrees to the first (ie west facing vs south facing). However the dipole must be carefully positioned, which makes it more difficult to hide. Bottom line: many FM stations. much interference, CCrane products superior results on both AM and FM, but only if radio and antenna position take priority.
Fortunately being in a major metro area, a dipole does everything I need
It would seem to me that the next ” upgrade ” to this radio would be to have a jack or a way to easily remove and replace the FM whip antennae . This would also make it easier to get better 2 meter reception. JK.
I attached a dipole antenna to my FM receiver and position the wire for better reception. You can also switch to monaural mode to improve a weak FM signal.
I’ve found a work charge station (Black & Decker) with radio gets excellent reception in old hotel building I worked in the basement, AM or FM, the guest radios not as good in above basement but FM OK,
For the stereo in my home I use an outdoor TV antennae. For the old boom box radio next to my garden I’ve attached some solid core electrical wire in a loop to the antennae connections and threaded the loop through my garden fencing. And recently I purchased a CCradio SW which comes with a wonderful antennae.
I used an old magnetic antenna mount, cut off the stinger to 31″ screwed it into the mount. I taped aluminum foil down to the top of my computer desk (enough to make a decent ground plane). I centered the antenna on the foil and made an adapter for the pl259 connector so that it would match the fm antenna input of my radio. Although its not very pretty it works great. Alan
i live in a far west texas town named Alpine. I like to listen to the NPR station 30 miles away and what I did to bring in the signal stronger , is that I used a surplus length of #12 ground wire and an old piece of plumber’s tape. I loosened the wall switch plate, I preformed the ground wire onto the bottom screw that holds the switch in place. I notched the plate and retightened all the screws. Now the strength of the radio is the best it’s ever been…
I use an outdoor digital tv antenna to bring in signals I would otherwise not receive. Works great.