For about the last 15 years I have been listening to NPR at 89.5 MHz while
riding my bike for an hour or two on nice days. There are several locations
where many radios don't receive and lose the station and sometimes capture
another close station. I've been buying used portables at garage sales for
$10.00 or less and comparing their performance. So far I haven't found any
of the Walkmans or Sports radios that are acceptable and to date the best
has been a Sony ICF-34, much better than my Grundig Yacht Boy 400, but I
can't risk it to try my Sony 2010. I've built and/or modified many radios
and often thought about trying to make a better 89.5 radio but I don't think
there's anyway I can beat the commercial jobs especially when I can get them
for $10.00 or less. Generally I prefer not to use headphones and instead
fasten the portable to my handlebars so I can hear the radio and local
sounds. The radios take a pretty good beating but few have failed from the
vibration or minor crashes.
In the past I've lived in somewhat remote locations where I couldn't get the
stations I wanted and the best solution was a good antenna with directivity
and gain as high up as you can get it! But I can't do that on my bike.
However if you come up with a good home brew solution please let me know.
73
Hank WD5JFR
"Alan Horowitz" wrote in message
...
a city I visit frequently -or more precisely, it's exurban outskirts -
has only one mellow-Jazz FM-broadcast station, the only one for many
hundreds of miles.

thus I have decided to build my own single-station hi-performance
receiver to get the one station.

I know enough to know that ideally, the bulk of the gain,
directionality, selectivity should be at the antenna itself. Or even
more to the point, tower height. At least ideally. And
hi-performance single FM channel yagi's are easily spec'd from a
number of antenna houses. So that issue is not being placed on this
table.

The rest of the gain budget is.

Let the discussions begin. For example, what approach do the known
"name" receivers (Kloss Model One, GE Super Radio) use? can a
homebrewer do better?
Which commercial house builds the best resonant chambers for the 108
Mhz frequency? Can be be done easily at home? how about the
demodulation and audio portions?