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FM Reception -Car Antenna vs. Home Antenna

I live in a hilly Northern California city. My reception on my home stereo is bad & I've tried several different home antenna's. I use a Mcintosh Tuner, so the tuner should not be the issue here.
Why is it that my reception is pretty darn good in all of my cars right outside of my house?
Why not just buy a car antenna & hook it up to my home system?
Sounds like a pretty stupid question, but what's the deal?
Thanks in advance for your time.
128x128rilands
sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
What do you mean when you say home antenna? Those small table top size amplified antennas are a joke. The little T Wire works as well.

I have a large roof antenna in my attic crawl space, and can pick up FM stations clearly 100 miles away.

Good car stereos have a really good FM. As a matter of fact Creek uses a car stereo FM chipset in his tuners. The Cambridge Audio T500 tuner has the same car audio chip.

What Mac Tuner so you have?
rilands's avatar
rilands OP
5 posts
 
I have one of those 4 ft. monster poles that plug into an ac outlet. I've put it out in the garage on the ceiling.

My Mcintsh is the MR85.
For the price of this tuner, you'd expect better reception than your car. Or at least I do.
A lot of people do have reception problems in my area.
Ag insider logo xs@2x
muzikat
930 posts
 
Try a Magnum Dynalab whip antenna. It is essentially the same as a car antenna. I have also had luck with Godar Model 1:
http://users.mcleodusa.net/m/mgodar/.
The real solution is to install a rooftop, but that does not work for most.
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