John2189 454 #1 Posted May 10, 2021 In my work shop I’ve always had bad fm reception. I’ve tried several different radios and no good. Lots of static and only one station comes in but still has static. I have flouresent lights,steel roof and t1-11 siding. (Was bad before I put the steel roof on ). I bought a used Bose wave radio hoping it would be ok, but still the same. It has a screw fitting for a75 ohm antenna. All the radios worked ok away from the shop. My question is would an antenna fix this? If so should I get an inside or outside antenna? What brand or style? I’ve googled it, but sometimes doing that makes it more confusing. Thanks John Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Achto 27,616 #2 Posted May 10, 2021 I would think that almost any antenna mounted outside the building would greatly improve your reception. 4 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tunahead72 2,424 #3 Posted May 10, 2021 How's the reception with all the fluorescents turned off? 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
John2189 454 #4 Posted May 10, 2021 51 minutes ago, tunahead72 said: How's the reception with all the fluorescents turned off? Sometimes better, sometimes no change 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
8ntruck 7,021 #5 Posted May 10, 2021 Try attaching a bi pole fm antenna to the 75 ohm antenna connection. You might have to fiddle with the orientation of the antennato get the best reception. Look it up online. They are easy to make. I just made one out of a length of lamp cord. If the inside antenna does not help, the next step would be an outside antenna. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Maxwell-8 4,277 #6 Posted May 10, 2021 We have an outside antenne for 2 different radio's. No problems with reception, as long as it lasts, because they wanne shut down the am/fm radio for DAB+, so later down the road we gonne have to pay for dab+ radio 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
squonk 41,164 #7 Posted May 10, 2021 (edited) I got XM in my shop. I had an extra magnetic XM car antenna that I stuck on a metal cabinet by the overhead door. Radio head came from my Tundra as my GMC came with XM installed. Costs me $20 a month. I can't find an FM station I like with out countless ads and promos. Some of the XM ones are the same way but I can switch to 60's to 70's to jazz to the NFL to Nascar. Edited May 10, 2021 by squonk 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ACman 7,618 #9 Posted May 10, 2021 When in the trades none of the radios would work in the basement. Luckily we usually had some copper pipe and we called it the “Dewalt reception kit“ . We finally gave up on the job site or cheap radios and built a box with a Pioneer radio with 6x9” and 6” inch speakers . Bought a cheap 120 to 12v converter that we mounted inside the box . We also got a car antenna with long cord so we could move it around. This fixed all our problems and it way louder than everyone else’s radio so if we didn’t like their music we just cranked ours up ! 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jeff-C175 7,202 #10 Posted May 10, 2021 10 hours ago, 8ntruck said: a bi pole might have better luck searching for DIPOLE ( one word with a " D " ) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
