FM Reception question, please

Fact is, by replacing my MD Silver Ribbon (indoors) with a Fanfare whip on the peak of my roof (outdoors, I increased the signal strength reading on my Accuphase T-101 tuner from 2 to 5 (pegged the meter).
There is nothing theoretical about this. It really happened.
Now, that said, I must also tell you that I listen exclusively to a 16 watt community radio station whose broadcast antenna is visible from my whip at a distance of about 5 miles.
This is a great little station by the way. You can check it out at www.kafmradio.org on the web. It's wildly eclectic so if it isn't your thing when you tune in, try again later.
I'm in the Mountain time zone in the USA.
Now, thanks to the internet, that 16 watts can be heard around the world. Isn't that incredible?

Actually, that isn't really true. A whip antenna is not better than a dipole in absolute terms. How you use and install the antenna might possibly make it better. I have a few tuner manuals that even do a decent job of illustrating it.

A dipole antenna has a figure 8 pattern in which it will pickup stations. Basically, there are two nulls off the ends of the dipole where it will not receive an FM station. This is actually a good thing, but does mean that you have to pay careful attention to the installation of even a simple dipole. The rejection of unwanted signals to the sides, even if small, could still be very beneficial. I have tried whips and dipoles in the same location, and the dipole will pull in more stations if you rotate it.

A whip antenna is not directional, meaning it will pick up all stations equally well in all directions. This can be good and bad. What is most beneficial is that a whip can be installed fairly unobtrusively in a high up location outside the house, which will, or course, always yield benefits. That is why Macrojack saw a gain increase when he put his antenna outside. I don't know if that antenna is amplified, but that would obviously do something as well. Antenna amplification obviously is not going to give you a cleaner signal, though.

A whip or a dipole or what have you cannot have gain, technically speaking. With my directional antenna I receive stations 50 miles to the south very cleanly. With whips and dipoles, mounted in the same location, I don't.

Ryan

Ryan,
I'm in the Grand Valley of western Colorado. We have a dozen or so stations in the valley and high mountains preventing reception of anything farther away than 20 miles. Terrain in the valley is very flat. Perhaps my circumstances are too unusual to serve as an example.

Muzikat,

Thanks (I think!)!

It won't be long now and someone is going to claim that there is a difference in the sound of different antennas, besides noise, of course.