iccad@tekig.UUCP (IC Computer Aided Design) (12/06/83)
I record music from a distant FM station. I have a good tuner and have bought a roof FM antenna to improve my reception. I still have some problems with multipath, fading, fuzz, distortion, whatever. The station is a considerable distance away, i.e. reception is bound to be problematic to begin with. However: I recently tuned it in on my TABLE radio with its TWIN-LEAD DIPOLE in my bedroom and got clear reception, while my sophisticated hi-tech rig was in the living room fuzzing its brains out. I didn't know whether to laugh or throw up. I replaced the twin-lead lead-in on my roof antenna with coax and a transformer and improved the situation some. I'm thinking about buying an antenna rotator. (Right - throw more money down a sophisticated rathole.) Obviously, it IS possible to get good reception, even if I just use a cheap dipole antenna with my stereo and use the roof antenna for a boat anchor. The problem is, even the dipole doesn't provide distortion-free reception all the time, and I find it difficult to believe that I can't set up a roof antenna that will do better than a stupid twin-lead dipole!! I have also noticed that when the reception goes out on the indoor dipole, I can improve it by turning it slightly (it hangs from the ceiling, attached to a wood slat), and the reception fades in and out in any position I put it in. Seemingly the signal path is changing directions? (1) YAAARRGGhh!! HAAAALLLPPP!! (2) Is this article posted to the right newsgroup? IS there a right newsgroup for this article? (3) Is there a sophisticated antenna system out there that might cure my problem? (4) Are there any sources of information I might pursue? (5) Do I have to design a position-servoed antenna with signal-strength and/or multi-path sensing and feedback? (I'm mad enough.)
gregs@uo-vax1.UUCP (12/14/83)
#R:tekig:-167800:uo-vax1:2900006:000:77 uo-vax1!gregs Dec 11 23:37:00 1983 Solution: Get a Carver tuner. Greg Stewart Univ. of Oregon Eugene, Oregon
spoo@utcsrgv.UUCP (Suk Lee) (12/17/83)
While not denigrating the CARVER tuner,
one should keep in mind that if you
switch your tuner to mono, and STILL
have multipath problems, the CARVER
won't help a bit. It uses the fact
that the noise (in stereo) between
the Left and Right channels is out of
phase to do some cute signal processing,
so the CARVER can't do too much
if the mono signal is messed up.
From the pooped paws of:
Suk Lee
..!{decvax,linus,allegra}!utzoo!utcsrgv!spoo