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FM radio antenna

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cclark
Navigator

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USA
104 Posts

Initially Posted - 04/23/2004 : 18:26:59

I have a bookshelf 110V radio on the boat, that I want to improve the radio reception. Any suggestions? I have a signal splitter from the VHF, but I have been told that it won't work on the 110V radio.
Thanks,
Chris

Yam Ka '83 SK/TR #3749

Edited by - on

Frank Hopper
Past Commodore

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Pitcairn Island
6776 Posts

Response Posted - 04/23/2004 : 22:45:54

Back in the late 60's they used to use the 110 volt power cord as an antenna, radios would ship with a 1" x 1 1/2" clamp, it would clamp on the power cord and also have slots in it to sit under the external antenna screws. They seemed to work very well on FM. Take a wire and put 20 wraps around your power cord and terminate the two ends under the FM external antenna posts. Tell us what happens.

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km0e
1st Mate

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USA
30 Posts

Response Posted - 04/24/2004 : 10:47:44

Chris, I assume you are referring to VHF as your marine radio that also has a transmitter? I think I would be very careful about sending 25 watss of RF into the FM radio. I don't think you should have a splitter in a coax of a transmitter, this may affect your swr and hurt the perfomance of the vhf radio. If you don't have to monitor vhf while listening to your fm, Get an adaptor from Radio Shack that will let you use the vhf antenna directly. On my C-22 I had a mast mounted Ham Radio antenna designed for 146 mhz, slightly under the vhf marine band. I would use it with an adaptor into the fm radio, which was a 12 volt car stereo/cd player type and it worked extremely well. I have never tried using the vhf antenna which was also mast mounted but I would expect to get the same results.

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cclark
Navigator

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USA
104 Posts

Response Posted - 04/25/2004 : 01:16:13

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by fhopper@mac.com
 Back in the late 60's they used to use the 110 volt power cord as an antenna, radios would ship with a 1" x 1 1/2" clamp, it would clamp on the power cord and also have slots in it to sit under the external antenna screws. They seemed to work very well on FM. Take a wire and put 20 wraps around your power cord and terminate the two ends under the FM external antenna posts. Tell us what happens.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

I tried this today and it improved my reception about 50%
Thanks for all the input.
Chris

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jheard
1st Mate

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USA
49 Posts

Response Posted - 04/26/2004 : 19:52:25

I use an aftermarket car antenna I bought at Circuit City. I placed it inside the port aft locker on top of a shelf there oriented horizontally. Works fine.

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Randall
Navigator

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123 Posts

Response Posted - 04/26/2004 : 20:29:38

I've had pretty good luck using either a short (18"?) flexible plastic car antenna or the cheapie flexible wire antennas that West Marine and others sell. You can discreetly route them anywhere-- under shelves, behind the cabin liner, etc. Of course, if you're in a deep fringe area they won't work so well.

Hey Frank, there's an old saying: "if you can remember the 60's, you weren't really there". I was really there, man, and I don't remember anybody wrapping antennas around power cords, and.........Oh wow, man, look at the streamers!!.....Far Out!!!

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Frank Hopper
Past Commodore

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Pitcairn Island
6776 Posts

Response Posted - 04/26/2004 : 22:05:21

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Randall
 

Hey Frank, there's an old saying: "if you can remember the 60's, you weren't really there". I was really there, man, and I don't remember anybody wrapping antennas around power cords, and.........Oh wow, man, look at the streamers!!.....Far Out!!!
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Come to the Nationals in Wichita in 05, we can compare stories, mine include Big Sur and Monterey Pop. (Both sound better than they were.)

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dlucier
Master Marine Consultant

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Virgin Islands (United Kingdom)
7583 Posts

Response Posted - 04/27/2004 : 10:05:28

Check out this link to a letter to Practical Sailor. In it you'll find that they highly recommend NOT using a splitter on the VHF antenna for the AM/FM radio....

http://www.practical-sailor.com/newspics/charts/87Letters4.pdf

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The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.