Outdoor antenna setup

Get a grounding block from Radio Shack ($1.99 or so). The grounding block mounts to the house and is grounded to a ground wire. You cut the co-ax and mount a connector and screw the co-ax into each side of the grounding block.
Prevents lightening from going into your tuner - a good idea!

While i forgot to look up line losses for RG-6 quad shield vs low loss foam twin-lead at work today, i just happened to run across an "antique" GC Electronics catalogue that i had handy from 1976 !!! In it, i can find a multitude of antennas that list extreme distance FM reception. One of them lists 220 miles on FM ( this antenna has a 110" reflector and an absolutely huge boom ), one lists 190 miles on FM with 29 elements / 111" boom, another lists 120 miles on FM with 21 elements on an 85" boom, another dedicated FM antenna lists 150 miles on FM using 19 elements, another lists 190 miles on a 95" boom, etc... Obviously, these ratings are probably best case scenario and probably just a bit optimistic at that. None the less, they state that reception of signals within the FM broadcast band is possible for WAY, WAY over 100+ miles. Obviously, this would require a proper antenna installation and both good receiving AND a solid transmitter signal to do so.

While some of you may find those figures hard to believe, i can at this very moment pull in a local low powered FM station that is appr 30 - 40 miles away from me with no problems whatsoever. While you say that this is NOTHING in terms of distance, i am doing it using a 6' piece of coax as an antenna with NOTHING connected to it. The coax is simply connected to the 75 ohm antenna jack and lays horizontally across a shelf. There is the typical "copper stub" exposed that one would normally have hanging out of an "F" connector and that is it. As such, i'm getting 30+ miles of FM reception in stereo on what is basically a 100% shielded conductor. In effect, this has less capture area than if i literally had a coat-hanger stuck in the antenna jack.

While it is true that i have relatively flat terrain between my location and the transmitter, if you can't get 100+ miles out of a KICK ASS directional antenna installation mounted outdoors and up relatively high and in the open, you better think about buying some better gear or moving out of the caves down in the valley. There is NO reason other than having a poor installation and / or poor quality receiving gear that you should not be able to pick up a multi-kilowatt station 100+ miles away. That is, unless you have other nearby stations operating on the same frequency.

If local stations are not on the same exact frequency but are close enough to cause interference to the distant ones that you want to hear, you need to increase the selectivity and adjacent channel rejection of the tuner you are using. You can do this via the use of what is called a "pre-selector" in the radio communications field. Magnum Dynalabs markets one of these devices and markets it under the name of "Signal Sleuth". This device tightens up the front end of the receivers by fine tuning the "Q" or bandwidth of the received signals. As such, you can effectively "null out" unwanted signals simply by fine tuning the filter. Keep in mind that you would have to fine tune these filters for each individual station or frequency that you were trying to pull in.

Besides being able to "pre-select" the quality of the signal being fed into the tuner, it can also increase the quantity i.e. "amplify" it. This should increase the signal to noise ratio and improve stereo separation.

For the record, i'm pulling in that local "weak station in the distance" using a tuner that i paid $29 for from a pawn shop in Indiana. Sean
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Sean, the 60 mile thing is based on typical flatland topography and a typical transmitter and receiver height. Obviously, if you have a 1000' antenna at each end, you're going to do better. But the point is that FM signals are line-of-sight only, that is, they do not bend around the curvature of the earth. AM signals do bend, because they are much lower in frequency, but FM does not. It will occasionally bounce off the ionosphere if conditions are right, but that is not a reliable method of receiving.
Therefore, if you are able to physically see the transmitter from your house (at least in a theoretical sense, ignoring smog, the tree across the street, etc.), then you will be able to receive very low-powered stations with very little difficulty. If you can't see the transmitter, then it's instantly a whole different ball game. And all those giant antenna arrays are needed to get the BOUNCE signal, that is, an extremely weak reflection of the original signal, whether it is off a geographical feature (usually) or even a man-made structure. That is why it is often best to aim a highly directional antenna at a big mountain, sometimes even if it's nowhere near or even in the same direction as the actual transmitter. The bounce signal off the mountain may be stronger and cleaner than any other bounce signal you can get, and even then you aren't going to pull it in unless you have a very good directional antenna.

Folks, i understand how all of this stuff works. I make my living working on, modifying and using radio communications gear. I also know that as frequency rises, ground wave transmission distance falls off. I also know that various modes of operation offer greater communications range i.e. AM transmits further than FM for the same average power levels when used on the same frequency, SSB ( single sideband ) transmits further than AM, morse code transmits further than SSB, etc... While some of you might not know it, this is the reason that morse code is used rather than voice communications in times of distress or poor conditions i.e. it has the most chance of getting through.

My business partner is going to bring in an article for me to check out written by Gordon West. He is a reknown amateur ( ham ) radio operator that does a lot of work with antennas. In this article, he is working with SSTV ( slow scan tv ) signals in the 400+ MHz range. SSTV is exactly what it sounds like i.e. a television broadcast that uses slow scan or "reduced resolution picture frames per minute". The distance that he was able to transmit a visible / audible signal at this frequency range is quite incredible according to my business partner. Given the fact that he was appr 4X higher in frequency than the commercial FM broadcast band AND transmitting video makes this even more interesting given this thread and the theories discussed in it.

For the record, we've been able to talk 100+ miles base to mobile using what is called "simplex" ( no tower mounted repeaters ) on the two meter amateur band. The two meter band primarily uses FM as a mode of communications and is 40 MHz higher in frequency than the FM radio. Obviously, this means we were using similar mode of transmission at a higher frequency making this even more difficult. The fact that we were in a "hybrid" ( big base antenna mounted up high to a little car mounted mobile antenna on the ground ) situation stresses that this type of range is quite easily obtained. Keep in mind that we were using 100 watts of power for each transmitter. Given the fact that FM radio stations use THOUSANDS of watts and both the receiving station ( your outdoor directional FM antenna ) and the transmitting tower would in effect be using "base" i.e. BIG outdoor antenna systems mounted up relatively high off the ground, i have to once again stress that this type of range should NOT be a problem. Sean
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Cdc: Does this grounding block create a signal loss?