Tips for improving FM Radio reception?

[StrandedonEarth]

Just like the title says. Where I live, the local stations that come in perfectly are not the type of music most employees care to listen too, and/or being too into the "power rotation" format of repeating the same songs 5 times a working day. But there are 2-3 other stations that come in less-than-perfectly with a much better music rotation. Usually these stations fade in and out of crystal clarity, presumably depending on the local weather and/or electromagnetic environment.

Naturally there are several older second-hand-grade stereos placed around the shop floor, with the general agreement they stay on the same station to avoid stereo wars. Some have better reception than others, naturally. Much time is spent fiddling with antennas to get the clearest reception to little avail, as the reception changes as soon as the meaty bag of salty water moves away. Some stereos have the old telescopic antenna, while others have the flexible wire (I know the loop antennas are for AM).

Presumably the best solution is to convince the boss man to install a master receiver / repeater, similar to what is commercially available. The transmitter would probably need to be mounted up on the roof truss to avoid interference from the machinery, and higher-power than the commonly available consumer-grade solutions. So probably not the simplest/easiest solution. 

What I've learned from playing around with antennas is the grounding them is bad. It often seems that touching the antenna is not the best, but being inches away from touching it with a meaty bag of salty water often brings in perfect reception. Getting away from metal objects seems to be helpful (I'm well aware of the Faraday Effect), but is complicated by being inside a standard truss-roofed warehouse building.

So, if anyone has any tips and tricks for improving reception on cheap stereo antennas, I'd love to hear them!

 

[18Watt]

When you touch the antenna, sometimes even just stand really close to it, you become part of the antenna.  Sometimes that helps, sometimes not.  In any case, it's not a good solution, because eventually you will want to stand somewhere else.

Sounds like your issue is the antenna(s).  Being located inside a steel building does not help.

Easiest solution is to try to make the antennas better, by making them longer.  If the radio has inputs for a FM antenna, use any two-conductor wire.  Attach one end of each conductor to the FM Antenna input.  Then try running them up or perhaps up together, then branch them out to make a 'T' shape with them.  The ends of the conductors which are not attached to the radio should ideally be not electrically connected to anything.

If the only FM Antenna input is the extendible 'whip' antenna, you may be able to improve that reception as well.  Try taking a single-conductor wire (stranded will work better for this than solid..).  Strip a few inches of the shield off of one end.  Then wrap the exposed conductor around the whip antenna, just try to make a half-way decent electrical connection.  Now you can run the wire up higher or in different directions, you essentially just made a longer antenna.

Although stranded wire probably works better than solid for attaching to a whip antenna, any copper wire will function fine as an antenna.  Don't use shielded coax (Cable TV wire) cable as an antenna, the shielding will prevent the signal from getting through.

Also, I do not recommend attaching antenna wires to parts of your metal building- you'll get a lot of electrical noise, and it's not safe.  Leave the shielding on the wire you use, only strip off the shielding where you need to connect it to either the FM Antenna terminals, or to the whip antenna itself.

Best solution would be to have a decent antenna installed on the roof of the building.  Run shielded coax from the roof antenna to a single receiver, and put speakers throughout the facility.

[StrandedonEarth]

28 minutes ago, 18Watt said:

Best solution would be to have a decent antenna installed on the roof of the building.  Run shielded coax from the roof antenna to a single receiver, and put speakers throughout the facility.

If only we could get the bigwigs to agree to that. Speakers would certainly need an upgrade; near my post I can barely hear the PA, although it's better elsewhere.

Thanks for the input!

[Shpaget]

Consider getting a better radio. Alledgedly car radios have significantly better reception than home/office stuff since they need to operate in electronically noisy environment.

[darthgently]

More and more internet "music radio" ends up being the generic solution

[Shpaget]

Oh, I completely forgot. If you guys want radio only for music and not news, have everybody write down suggestions on songs, albums, performers and assemble a mix which you then put on an MP3 player. An old iPod or even a cheap Aliexpress one will do just fine.

As for multiple radios, there are FM transmitters that may help (check if they are legal in your area).

[StrandedonEarth]

16 hours ago, darthgently said:

More and more internet "music radio" ends up being the generic solution

 

10 hours ago, Shpaget said:

Oh, I completely forgot. If you guys want radio only for music and not news, have everybody write down suggestions on songs, albums, performers and assemble a mix which you then put on an MP3 player. An old iPod or even a cheap Aliexpress one will do just fine.

As for multiple radios, there are FM transmitters that may help (check if they are legal in your area).

A quick Google look for FM transmitters (for either streaming radio or a playlist) seems to only turn up the type meant to transmit to car radios, which I doubt have the range we'd need. I did find this:

(From: https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/smt-gst.nsf/eng/sf02087.html#q4) In Canada, low power FM transmitters that produce a field strength of under 100μV/m @ 30 meters can be operated legally without license, as long as they comply to Broadcasting Equipment Technical Standards 1.

I don't know how that translates to what the effective range of a legal transmitter is i.e. is a strength of 100μV/m sufficient for consumer stereos to tune in to? 30m would be plenty of range for the shop. Apparently I need to start digging deeper than a surface Google search to find specs on power/range for the offerings out there. I suppose they are cheap enough to experiment with.

[monophonic]

On 12/25/2023 at 8:24 PM, StrandedonEarth said:

 

A quick Google look for FM transmitters (for either streaming radio or a playlist) seems to only turn up the type meant to transmit to car radios, which I doubt have the range we'd need. I did find this:

(From: https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/smt-gst.nsf/eng/sf02087.html#q4) In Canada, low power FM transmitters that produce a field strength of under 100μV/m @ 30 meters can be operated legally without license, as long as they comply to Broadcasting Equipment Technical Standards 1.

I don't know how that translates to what the effective range of a legal transmitter is i.e. is a strength of 100μV/m sufficient for consumer stereos to tune in to? 30m would be plenty of range for the shop. Apparently I need to start digging deeper than a surface Google search to find specs on power/range for the offerings out there. I suppose they are cheap enough to experiment with.

This side of the arctic most radio stations have streaming available for free, so you could forget the FM. Any old cell phone + cheap bluetooth speaker can replace the radio set entirely. Assuming of course you can get wifi or cell reception (+ cheap data plan) in the shop. You wouldn't even need to set up any playlists if your favorite stations stream online.

[DDE]

OK, this is a bit unhelpful, but it had to be shared.

 

[StrandedonEarth]

16 hours ago, monophonic said:

Any old cell phone + cheap bluetooth speaker can replace the radio set entirely.

I'm not sure how well multiple devices streaming the same station will sync up. With modern internet-based cable converters, I can rarely get the two TV's in my house to sync up, and echoes are almost as annoying as stereo wars.

[Superfluous J]

What about one dedicated device connected to multiple speakers via bluetooth? Not sure if bluetooth would work across your warehouse, but back when I wasn't work from home (Praise Covid) I'd frequently walk to the other side of the building with few issues.

[StrandedonEarth]

9 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

What about one dedicated device connected to multiple speakers via bluetooth? Not sure if bluetooth would work across your warehouse, but back when I wasn't work from home (Praise Covid) I'd frequently walk to the other side of the building with few issues.

That would almost certainly work, but would require replacing a few ancient stereos with sufficiently loud bluetooth speakers. It's amazing how something that normally seems plenty loud enough becomes nearly inaudible in the work environment...

[RCgothic]

One thing to mention is that poor quality LED light driver units can generate harmonics in the cabling that can lead to interference on radio frequencies. Took a few months to track that problem down on the kitchen radio a few years back. So if you have LED lights you may find you get better reception when they're off.