need FM antenna help

I cannot get the local station '91.3' (25 miles distance in mountainous
terrain.
I can receive it fine in my auto 30 feet away from my Sony 'GX5ESII'
receiver, where I can only get it by holding two 20ga. doorbell wires in a
certain position, with the mass of my body necessary to achieve this.
My Sony has two FM antenna plugs (300 ohm and 75 ohm) but I can only get any
reception at all on the 300 ohm I'm using.
Years ago a friend told me to use a dipole but he didn't know the
dimensions.
Would I best use a coaxial from the receiver to the dipole junction?
I sure would appreciate any help as the only radio I now enjoy (old age) is
NPR.

 

P&M

Car radios are better than home radios, probably because the car's
sheet metal acts as a ground plane, whatever that is.

Home radios vary a lot in quality, and price and brandname are not
clearly related to how well they receive stations.

I have radios from 40 years agol that work better than new radios that
have more famous, more presigious brands that sold for more, even
allowing for inflation.

Also, for best results on most FM table radios, the power cord, which
is the antenna on most of them, needs to be stretched out at least
somewhat, and maybe pointed at the station. (Although inmy experience
direction hasnt' made a difference but beting stretched out and not
rolled or folded up has made a tremendous one. It's reproduceable.
I move the cord and the reception gets better or worse.

While it might help to add an external antenna and somehow couple it
to the radio, I didn't get much from buying one, including the 40 foot
folded dipole I put in the attic. .

Instead, I woudl say you should keep buying radios for 3, 4, 10
dollars at Goodwill Industries and yard sales until you find ones that
reliabley get your station.

Radios that allow the AFC to be turned off are a good idea too. Tune
to the weak station with the AFC off, and then turning the AFC on
might keep the radio on that frequency.


I live in Balitmore and wan t to get 88.5 and 90.1 in DC. A lot of
radios won't do it. My most expensive table radio will, but iirc my
even more expensive name brand receiver with digital tuning and
multiople inputs and switches for mulitple stes of speakers won't.

A tube radio from the 60's would get them, but evertunally it broke
beyond my abiltity to repair it. A cheap clock radio gets them
both, and a cheap non-clock radio does also.

When I get them, I use a permanent marker to note where on the dial
the station is. So I wont' pass by it when the radio's cord is in
the wrong position.

WRT AM, I was on a long campaign to get WRC, 980 in washington when I
was inside, not just in the car. Never succeeded and then WRC changed
to a weaker transmitter and a different frequency, and I couldn't even
get it in the car.

 

Get a similar or the same car radio from a junk yard. Get a car
antenna too. Buy a 12v power supply. Radio shack used to have them
and likely still does. CB guys used to use them to power a auto CB
radio in the house. Anyhow, hook the car radio to the power supply,
put that antenna on the roof, and enough wire to feed the antenna to
the radio and you should get the station. when you mount the antenna
on the roof, try to get a ground plane. If you have a metal roof, you
have a ground plane. Otherwise a metal rain gutter may work. If
nothing else, run several 6 ft. or longer wires from the base of the
antenna in different directions. (like a big X with the antenna in the
middle). Fasten these wires to something, but dont nail into your
roof. Fasten to a chimney, vent stack, rain gutter hangers, etc.