Shop Antenna Question

[DanStokes]

My shop radio sucks for reception. As a reminder I have an all-steel building with an old stereo, a CD changer, and a couple of speakers. I have a dipole stretched out along one of the girts (or are those perlins - who can remember) and sorta works but the reception comes and goes.

So I was thinking this:

How about if I put a car antenna outdoors on a 90* angle bracket and run the wire inside?

Would I hook the shield (braided outer wrap) to one antenna terminal of the stereo and the center wire to the other antenna terminal?

Or any other ideas?

Thanks
Dan

[TC]

Maybe you can get some ideas from this.....

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Outdoor-FM-Omni-Loop-Antenna-FM-Receive-Antenna-High-Performance-FM-Antenna-/320873293832?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ab589e808

[TheSilverBuick]

You think you've got it bad, you should try here! We only have two radio stations to begin with and only one comes through into the barn!

I got lucky though, just this last Friday I remembered seeing a satellite radio antenna rat nested up in a cabinet in the barn that the previous owner left behind. On a hunch I grabbed my car satellite radio thing and sure enough the antenna plugged into it. Stuck that sucker on the roof of the barn on Friday and have been rock'in satellite radio this weekend.

That's all I got for ideas. I've never tried adapting an antenna to something it wasn't designed for.

[pdub]

Maybe.

Maybe maybe run some speaker wire to a girder. The whole building could be an antenna?

I dunno, reception and antennas is something that usually just needs to be messed with and see what works.

[Monk]

Seems we would run just regular flat tv antenna wire
to the outside.
You might try splitting, to create two separate ends, and
fasten to building with isolators.

Here's an inexpensive outdoor model.

http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?p=hd-6000&d=winegard-hd6000-prostar-1000-fm-antenna-%28hd-6000%29&sku=615798398187&utm_campaign=base&utm_medium=organic&utm_source=google_base

[pdub]

At our house in SC I got mad and decided to divorce the cable company. Or try to. So I went to Radio Shack and bought a powered indoor TV antenna. It looked like a flying saucer. Had its own little DC power pack that plugged into the wall.

That thing didn't work for squat. One of the few things in my life I've ever taken back to the store. It was about 80 bucks, old dollars, lots of dollars back then. They gave me a quizzical look but gave me my money back.

But then it finally occurred to me....peewee look out the widow. We're on a lake. A creek runs beside the house. Lowest piece of property in the county, perhaps. 45 miles to the nearest TV station.

The car radio wouldn't even play until you made the climb out of that neighborhood.

Oh.

[silver_bullet]

sounds like you need an antenna tower or a satellite radio setup...
ever tried internet radio??

[DanStokes]

Not willing to spend on that. No 'puter in the shop and that's too much monkey motion anyway. I just want my cheap stereo to work! The round antenna might get the job done but I was hoping for even cheaper. Maybe I'll try the car antenna thing and see what happens. No clue if the impedence is right or if that matters.

I know the steel building has something to do with it because I can open the (steel) door and it gets better. And my cell phone works a lot worse in there. That's why I was thinking that almost anything outdoors might do it.

Good thought PW. However, we live on a coastal plain so nothing is any higher or lower than we are (at least significantly).

Dan

[silver_bullet]

if you have any flea markets around, there's usually an antenna joint in there and any old tv antenna with a 75 ohm flat cable should do the trick... just be sure to get it above the roof peak by a couple of feet. centrally located above the peak would be optimum as it would give you an excellent ground plane.

[PatricksDad]

Is $30 bucks too much? One trip to Radio Shack will do a lot: http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...odsInSession=1

Otherwise you can make your own "T" antenna from twin lead. You should be able to find a spool of that for free if you look around. The length of the top lead matters, though. I don't remember what the lengths are, just that you can only work in multiples of a certain length to get one that really works well.

[Lon_H]

I've had the same problem though my shop is wood framed. I went with internet radio and love it. I have a wireless router in the house and an old laptop with a wireless card in the shop. It's 75 feet away but picks up the signal. The only one time hassle is setting it so no one else uses your wifi.

[Monk]

Here's a couple of options Dan that aren't too expensive and got good reviews.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001HKM1HM/ref=oh_o00_s00_i00_details?tag=vglnk-c47-20

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3740648

Another old trick we used to do was wrap the radio
with speaker or antenna wire.........then take the loose
ends and run outside or attached to wall.

[milner351]

Dan - as others have suggested - you need a line of site outside.

I got a booster fm antenna - and put it up close to the sky light in my barn (a polycarbonate panel instead of steel in the roof)
That helped the reception tremendously - I think it was $16 from ebay.

[Scott Liggett]

Uncle Bob, what's an antenna?

[Beagle]

I'd try a 3.00 bi-pole first. They are amazingly good.

The internet radio is my friend. I've been on Pandora forever it seems - love it. I bought one of the internet radios that is specifically for that, it goes wherever. I hooked it up to a set of Boston Acoustic PC speakers with a little subwoofer and satellites and it's loud enough to get me in trouble, and sounds dang good. I had been using an old laptop for the same thing prior to that, which gives a little more flexibility as far as will play cd's, mp3's, and Pandora but I don't like leaving it in the weather and dust. The 100.00 radio doesn't appear to care.

I prefer either to Satellite radio, which I had for a year or so. They're both much more flexible to my listening interest of the moment.