Three systems, three rooms. HD FM in one room - the little Sony XDR-F1HD, a Kenwood KT 615 and a new Emotiva BASX PT-100. I'm on the west side of a low hill, but most TV stations [two rooms] are North of me and up to 35 miles away, so not much TV dx. However, I want to find what I can get on FM, so want a pretty decent antenna for that. I'm thinking of running as long a wire in the attic as I can for AM, which would also help SW, too? Running N/S at the top of the hill east of me are residential power lines, which I believe interfere with AM east of me. I may never be able to receive WSM Nashville. New Orleans comes in almost like local. Chicago almost that well.

Thanks for the head's-up on the SW sweepstakes.

Getting anything higher than the power lines east of me is not practical.

If your attic is fairly long and your roof is not metal an attic longwire should be decent. You want around 75' to 150' for good healthy performance (even 50' will be decent)....If you can go longer by all means do so. The funny thing about longwire antennas is despite AM and SW optimization (based on length) they will work on all bands in some positive form.....Mine was able to better than double the signal to my VHF scanner/weather radio, and on vacation in the remote north woods actually take a cell phone from no signal (with it's own whip) to decent usable signal.

There are formulas for wavelength and guidelines for what fraction of wavelength is optimum for 'tuning' a longwire antenna on the web. There are also broadband longwire antennas with some type of RLC trap spaced every few feet....The traps effectively reduce the length at higher frequency. The higher the freq the shorter ant you want.

Have you checked TV Fool for info on TV antenna requirements?

http://www.tvfool.com/index.php?opti...id=13&Itemid=1

Either antenna that you posted should be adequate for the 35 mile or so distance. The larger more expensive antenna has elements for low band TV (ch 2-6)... if you don't have a low band channel, it may not be necessary to spend the money for un-necessary aluminum, but with "repacking" in the future, perhaps you could end up with a low band channel someday. :scratch2:

Most "all band" TV antennas do not provide very high gain for FM, because strong FM signals could, in some cases, interfere with channel 6 reception. For FM dxing a dedicated FM only antenna on a rotator is usually considered to be a better choice. I use a (discontinued) APS-9 on a rotator to regularly listen to a Classical station about 100 miles away on my F1HD Sony.
More than you will likely need to know about FM antennas here:

http://ham-radio.com/k6sti/

Unfortunately the supply of of decent FM antennas has almost completely dried up, so you may be forced to just use an all band TV antenna.Even the little FM-6 has been discontinued. :(

http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?p=fm6

hope this helps,
jr

I was looking at the big Yagis, hoping that one of them would be a great FM antenna. So, now I'm thinking that all I need is a simpler TV antenna in the attic for that duty since an indoor TV antenna - one of those thin, black square models - is very nearly good enough. And put a dedicated FM antenna on a rotor outdoors - if I can find or build one. I had already discovered that the FM-6 was dc'd.

I read where one diy-er uses aluminum arrow shafts for building antennas, though I found no plans. I also wondered about copper tubing. And yes, I have used the fmfool site many times (as well as radiolocator, which also is very useful, as it provides AM info, too) - but they recommend 35' height for stations to my east due to the hill, but I don't see going quite that high, but rather just a few feet above the roof peak of my single-story bungalow.

Any of these seem worthwhile?

https://www.amazon.com/Outdoor-Anten...+radio+antenna

https://www.amazon.com/Antennas-Dire...+radio+antenna

https://www.amazon.com/Four-Element-...+radio+antenna


Found this in Amazon reviews, goes with that third model - looks like I've found something decent?

http://www.k6jrf.com/FM+TVOTA.html

For sure worth a try... since its boom length is similar to that of the 6 element FM-6, it *should* have similar gain. May be about as good as you can do these days without spending a ton of money on a commercial head end/translator antenna from Scala:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...YftrTT1IyGbBXA

IIRC these industrial strength antennas were around 500 bucks 7 or 8 years ago, likely more now.

Dxers have also imported Kroner antennas, but I expect that would be very expensive as well.

http://ham-radio.com/k6sti/korn1512.htm

You could get lucky and find a decent used antenna... about 5 or 6 years ago, I spotted an old Radio Shack 10 element FM antenna that was disconnected, on a house that was about to be painted... they were going to throw it away. I was happy to take it down for them, and rescue a free antenna. :)

jr

edit add: This Scala log periodic antenna would be better for dxing than the Scala Yagi which is usually optimized for one frequency:

https://www.kathreinusa.com/wp-conte...FM-VRM-50N.pdf

.

I found the log periodic for $1377.50. About $1300, or near enough, over budget.

The four-element antenna I found comes in under budget.

Call me a cheapskate.

IIRC there was a thread on audiokarma on DIY building a Gray-Hoverman FM antenna. I've heard good things about that antenna design, but never tried it.

Last house I lived in had an uninstalled omni-directional FM ant. in the garage attic, and I had the good sense to take it with me when we moved, so I know what I'm going to use if I ever want to improve my FM reception...

It is also not uncommon to see FM ants on the back of stores...If you can find an abandoned store building with one then you might be able to procure it.