Keith G wrote:


OK, I'm taking it as a bit of a 'thumbs down' all round and I've
decided to make a bit more effort with internal aerials on the FM
tuners and have already got a clean mono but not a hiss-free stereo
yet.


Try a directional aerial, if the signals you want to receive come from
the same approximate direction, and the higher the aerial the better
(there's an equation that relates received signal strength to aerial
height) and on the roof is better than indoors (to save the attenuation
incurred by the signal travelling through walls/windows.

If you put an aerial on the roof and amplify it as close to the aerial
as possible, you could then distribute the signal around the house.


If I can get the aerials tacked up tidily I'll stick with FM -


If you're using a wire aerial stuck to the wall near your hi-fi, then
it's very likely that you could significantly improve your FM reception
just by getting a single-element aerial and moving it to where reception
is better with the same room. I bought a single-element dipole from
Maplins to replace the wire aerial and put the new aerial on my
windowsill, and reception improved significantly. The reason is that
inside a room there's a lot of multipath (the signals are all reflecting
off walls and interfering with each other), so just the fact that you've
got more flexibility as to where you position the aerial allows you to
improve reception compared to being constrained by the wire aerial
making you put the aerial within a few feet of your hi-fi.


I've tried DAB and didn't like it much


Indeed.


and can get hold of a Freeview
box although I don't much fancy buggering about with one of them and
no picture to see what I'm doing....


If you can borrow a portable TV just to set it up, then you could get
one of these:

http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/fr...m#humax_f2foxt

which has an LED channel number display, and it's really quick to
remember which radio station is on which channel number. You'd very
likely be able to store a favourites list, so that you could press up
channel or down channel to flick quickly between the stations you do
listen to and not have to land on Smash Hits....


I guess I was tempted by the SD card recording and them little blue
LED eyes........


Why don't you use your PC for recording? Miles better than using SD
cards IMO.


--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

Freeview receivers price comparison -
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/fr..._receivers.htm
DAB radios price comparison -
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...tal_radios.htm