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Old January 21st 06, 03:35 PM posted to rec.radio.shortwave
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Default Help with an FM antenae!!

Every now and then, people around here who have coverted to cable toss
their old TV antenna off the roof. And when I say "toss," I mean toss.
The antennas are usually mangled by smacking into the ground. If not,
then the owners will stomp on them until the antenna fits into the
trash can.

One recent exception was, of all things, an amateur operator. He
carefully lowered the antenna and left it undamaged next to the trash
can. I scavenged it of course. Since FM is between channels 6 and 7, a
TV antenna is at least a starting point.

As for the mangled ones, sometimes it's just the elements that are
mangled. The central boom is still straight. In that case, I would be
tempted to break open an ARRL antenna book and build an antenna that
was optimized for performance at the one frequency that was of interest
to me.

In my case, there is an FM station in Annapolis that is impossible to
receive well on a regular basis, so I am in the same boat. I would aim
the antenna towards Annapolis and forget about using it across the band.