jon@boulder.UUCP (Jonathan Corbet) (03/10/85)
[]
After a few years of trying to cope with Colorado front range radio
reception (or the lack thereof), I have finally decided that I need to do
something about it. Does anybody out there know what sort of improvement I
could expect from a good FM tuner? Are there any brands out there that
perform especially well? Or am I doomed to listen to KTCL in mono
forever? Any info would be much appreciated.
--
Jonathan Corbet
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Field Observing Facility
{seismo|hplabs}!hao!boulder!jon (Thanks to CU CS department)rfg@hound.UUCP (R.GRANTGES) (03/12/85)
[] Do you use an outside antenna? Are you reasonably line of sight to anywhere? Surely Boulder has a fine stereo station in connection with the University, if nothing else. What do you now use for an FM set? Is it stereo? Miracles are possible, these days, but we are not clairvoyant (sorry, there's a charge for that). Tell us about your location. At the bottom of a lead mine? Where do you live with respect to the terrain? -- "It's the thought, if any, that counts!" Dick Grantges hound!rfg
rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) (03/14/85)
> After a few years of trying to cope with Colorado front range radio > reception (or the lack thereof), I have finally decided that I need to do > something about it. Does anybody out there know what sort of improvement I > could expect from a good FM tuner?... I have to agree with Jon's assessment of our situation here--with those monstrous slabs of rock just at the edge of town. Basically we've got several hunks of fairly flat rock about 1000' hi by a few hundred feet wide, at a 40 degree angle or so, less than a mile west of town. The town itself is a little hilly but the main problem (I'm fairly sure) is the multipath off those stupid (but beautiful) rocks and their supporting infrastructure. From time to time, people have had pretty nice things to say about the Carver tuner--the TX-11 or some such. I think I remember a posting about it not too long back. Is it all it's supposed to be? Are there any other candidates? I would be happy to get decent FM MX performance here. I would be elated to know of a tuner that doesn't turn into a white-noise generator at the slightest atmospheric disturbance between my home and the transmitter (< 10 miles away). I'd like to be able to pick up a decent signal from the local stations as well as from Denver (roughly 35 miles away) with one fixed antenna. That means that I could point the antenna in the general Denver direction to give it preference (because of the distance) if I don't need a super-directional antenna, and I could still get the local stations somewhat off-axis. -- Dick Dunn {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd (303)444-5710 x3086 ...If you plant ice, you're gonna harvest wind.
jon@boulder.UUCP (Jonathan Corbet) (03/15/85)
> Do you use an outside antenna? Are you reasonably line of sight to > anywhere? [...] What do you now use for an FM set? Is it stereo? > Miracles are possible, these days, but we are not clairvoyant (sorry, > there's a charge for that). Awwww, man...you can't get anything for free anymore! :-) > Tell us about your location. At the bottom > of a lead mine? Where do you live with respect to the terrain? Dick Dunn did a good job of filling in where I left off -- basically, there is a bunch of 1000' rock slabs just to the west of town called the Flatirons. The result is a great deal of multipath interference, especially for people like me who live on the west end of town. As far as equipment, I have a Yamaha CR420 receiver, with your basic 300 ohm dipole antenna. Since I rent a condo, I really can't put a good antenna on the roof. Brian Reid tells me that the Carver TX11 is the way to go, if one has $650 to spend on it. (BTW, I tried to thank you, Brian, but the mail path you used appears to be one of those one-way jobbies...). Does anybody else know of any good receivers, especially cheaper ones? -- Jonathan Corbet National Center for Atmospheric Research, Field Observing Facility {seismo|hplabs}!hao!boulder!jon (Thanks to CU CS department)
reid@Glacier.ARPA (03/16/85)
> From time to time, people have had pretty nice things to say about the > Carver tuner--the TX-11 or some such. I think I remember a posting about > it not too long back. Is it all it's supposed to be? > > I'd like to be able to pick up a decent signal from the local stations as > well as from Denver (roughly 35 miles away) with one fixed antenna. I have a Carver TX-11 tuner. It is absolutely fabulous. It is better than that. It is pure magic. My Hafler 220 and Hafler 110 amplifiers are good; my Nakamichi 680 and 480 tape decks are better; my Revox turntable is good, but my Carver TX-11 tuner is absolutely the best bleeping tuner you can possibly imagine. I live in Palo Alto, CA. I am 40 miles south of San Francisco, with a small (500 foot) mountain range in between. I am 50 miles SSW of Berkeley, with clear water in between. I am 35 miles NE of Santa Cruz, with 1500-foot mountains in between. I have an ordinary TV antenna on my roof, an 11-element chromatic Yagi, pointed at San Francisco. That TV antenna feeds a 300-ohm low-loss twinlead that runs about 30 feet through carefully-placed ceramic insulators to a ChannelMaster broadband TV amplifier, which gives me 30dB of gain. I run the output of the ChannelMaster into a 300/75 Balun transformer, and then into 75-ohm coax which snakes through the walls of my house down to my living room, where it feeds into the Carver TX-11 tuner. With this setup, I can get a 100-watt public radio station in Berkeley, a 5000-watt commercial station in Santa Cruz, a 50-watt college station in Marin county (15 miles farther away than San Francisco), and a complete crackpot public-access station that can't be running more than 10 or 15 watts, which is in Pacifica (800-foot "mountains" between me and Pacifica). These stations come in in full stereo, reliably, with not a particle of noise or distortion. There is no multipath interference, there is no fading, there is no popping in and out of the stereo signal. It just works. It's like playing a record or a tape. I can't speak for the signal conditions in your area, but if there is signal in the air near your house, the TX-11 will be able to hear it and give you good stereo from it. I didn't have a lot of success with the TX-11 when I was using an indoor antenna or rabbit ears, and I was slightly disappointed with it. Then I decided to modify my TV antenna system to feed FM to the living room, and it was like somebody had pulled cotton from my ears. I tested it against the NAD tuner, and against my old decrepit receiver that I had field-modified into a tuner. I didn't really do a lot of surveying--I was just so struck by how much better the Carver was than the NAD that I stopped looking and bought it on the spot. The blinking thing costs $650, though. Carver knows it's the best and charges accordingly. -- Brian Reid decwrl!glacier!reid Stanford reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA
rfg@hound.UUCP (R.GRANTGES) (03/18/85)
[] Give not up hope just yet. For one thing, you have an exaggerated idea of Carver prices, brought on, no doubt, by some well meaning but greedy local emporiium. The TX-11 list price was $599 in the Audio Annual Directory and price increases in this depressed industry have been kind of scarce lately. The whole Carver receiver lists for only $750 and the first place I called (that carried them) wanted only $695. In addition I believe there are some other tuners that are good at handling multipath, but their names escape me -perhaps someone else will come up with them or you could work your way thru reviews in Audio, Stereo Review and High Fidelity at the local library. Finally, about the antenna. Assuming you have ascertained that the rest of the building's people would also not be interested in improved reception via a better roof antenna, you could try some things in your own apartment. If you are on the side of the building facing the direction of the signals, good. If not,are you on the side away from the multipath slabs? If so,good. If not... fooey the thing to <not> be is on the side away from the signal. Do you have a balcony? can you hang anything out a window? If the answer to either is yes, you can see that you could try your own outdoor antenna. If all else fails, you could try a beam antenna along a ceiling. It's going to be better than a dipole. Practically anything is going to be better than a dipole. See if your local Radio Shack will let you take home an FM antenna with bring back privileges. Good Luck! -- "It's the thought, if any, that counts!" Dick Grantges hound!rfg
seifert@mako.UUCP (Snoopy) (03/20/85)
In article <1127@opus.UUCP> rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) writes: >I have to agree with Jon's assessment of our situation here--with those >monstrous slabs of rock just at the edge of town. Basically we've got >several hunks of fairly flat rock about 1000' hi by a few hundred feet wide, >at a 40 degree angle or so, less than a mile west of town. The town itself >is a little hilly but the main problem (I'm fairly sure) is the multipath >off those stupid (but beautiful) rocks and their supporting infrastructure. NO NO NO! Those big rocks aren't a problem, they're a solution!!! Do as our friend Phil does, use one of those mountains as a giant tip-toe! You get not only a nice stable base for your turntable and speakers, you get a nice vantage point for your antenna. (one of these days I'm going to find time to write up a review of Phil's system.) A cheap experiment you can try is building a rombic(sp?) antenna. There was a good article in Audio magazine about three years ago on how to build one. All you need is some twin-lead and a few resistors. _____ |___| the Bavarian Beagle _|___|_ Snoopy \_____/ tektronix!mako!seifert \___/ If God had intended Man to Smoke, He would have set him on Fire. -the fortune AI project