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Lower Powered Radio Stations
Garry_Herring
Posts: 66 Forum Member
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Further to my previous post regarding receiving FM stations out of the area ("Radio York in the North-East"), I finally invested in a Yagi 3-element FM Aerial which is fully pointed in the right direction of Woolmoor (about 27 miles away) and has picked up the main BBC radio stations 1, 2, 3 & 4 almost 100 % (in Mono) but BBC Radio York is still full of background noise and fainter.
For some reason this station is not coming in as good as the rest, even though it is on the same transmitter.
Could they have lowered the power for this station? or is something else contributing to this?
For some reason this station is not coming in as good as the rest, even though it is on the same transmitter.
Could they have lowered the power for this station? or is something else contributing to this?
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It's not on the same transmitter, it's on the same mast.
Although Radio York may use the same aerials as the BBC nationals, as Bollard points out, the transmitter power is only 500w as opposed to the 5000w that the BBC national stations use.
It may be that Radio York uses different aerials at a different height on the mast. That would also affect reception at a distance.
Reception of (FM) stations outside of their service areas depends on an combination of transmitter power, aerial height and interference - interference as in other stations transmitting on the same or adjacent frequencies.
Yes, I think he did. He needs to make sure that he has the Yagi correctly polarised in the Vertical plane as Radio York transmits VP on both Woolmoor and Acklam Wold.
Seems the Woolmoor signal is nulled significantly to stop it reaching too far to the North East, but with an external FM Yagi I would have thought that an adequate signal could be received. Maybe others may have some other suggestions for the OP?
Many thanks for your wonderful helpful replies.
The second installer who came to replace the aerial has been wonderful. At first we had a friendly argument on what polarization the aerial should be as you have advised me on. He was adamant that the transmitter was both. Everything was tried with various amplifiers, aerial heights and so on. So now on Monday, the aerial will be placed vertically after showing him your comments. So I won my argument lol.
It's been a great learning curve, as this aerial is the first FM aerial that the company has fitted.
on the question of what my original system was, it was the Aiwa XR-em20 which was virtually useless for picking up MW stations (even BBC Radio 5 live was barely hear-able) but picked up reasonably well on the FM stations with external aerial.
My second system was the JVC RC-BX53 which was a kind of 'beat box' but this pulled in the MW band superbly, including Radio 5 Nostalgie from The Netherlands. Radio York came in excellent too, but as they didn't broadcast the York City FC matches on their AM band of 666Mhz this was no good to me. There was no input for an external aerial though which was a shame, as this was an excellent unit. JVC certainly make great stuff.
I have just purchased another JVC Hi-fi system UX-P55 and this has improved the quality even further on MW. The FM signal for Radio York has improved too, so I think the vertical adjustments may do the trick.
If I remember correctly, the OP wanted to listen to football commentary. And this is not broadcast on the internet due to 'restrictions'. I had the same issue wanting to listen to Radio Leicester. But a roof mounted 3 element Yagi solved the problem for me. Mind you Radio Leicester uses 8kw and covers most of the Midlands.
Most TV installers haven't a clue about FM, as evidenced by the default being the dreaded horizontal halo which is a total waste of time. They like them because they fit in the white van easily and are less likely to get bent; performance simply isn't on their radar.
In most cases the best solution for FM is a vertical dipole, just the same as for DAB. There are very few FM stations without a vertical component.
You are quite correct about aerial installers. When I had our external DAB folded dipole put up, it was mounted horizontally. When I pointed out to him that it should be vertical, he admitted he didn't realise that all DAB is transmitted that way.
When, 2 years later I had the external 3 element Yagi put up, I used a firm that advertised as being FM installers as well as TV. I explained that i wanted to receive Radio Leicester, and he looked up the Tx and its location using some kind of device. "That Way" he pointed, and told me the distance was 65 miles+/- as the crow flies. It works fine. Full Stereo (slight hiss) full RDS.
Installer returned today and was astounded to hear Radio York coming in loud and crystal clear after he vertically placed the aerial. He was always led to believe that the aerials were on a horizontal/vertical mixed plane. He couldn't get over it.
Minster Fm is there too, but more noisy. as expected, as is Radio Leeds, which is stronger signal than I expected.
Lost Radio Aire and Viking FM as the aerial was turned, but these play mostly networked stuff anyway, mirroring TFM2 up here, in their output.
Many thanks to everyone.
If he had bothered to look at official Ofcom data, and even the BBC's own 'Noddy Level' data....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/reception/radio/fm_radio/fm_local
...he'd have known. In fact there are many FM transmitters that only transmit a VP signal, sorry but the guy is not fit for purpose. This is basic stuff
Did you not print out and show him the links I and others provided a few weeks ago ?
Pleased that you got it sorted. Hopefully the installer will 'learn' from this....
In fact, one amplifier was so powerful it was picking up BBC Radio Cymru and this totally blasted out Radio York. What transmitter this was coming in form we didn't know. Also some radio stations called Dearne FM and The Bay came in strongly.
Now the Aerial is vertical a lot of these signals have gone but it was very interesting to hear some of these stations and it has been a good learning curve.
Looking forward to hearing the York City match on Saturday. And may I say to Simon, continuing best wishes to Leicester City this season they are doing great. A question I would like to ask though is that: do Leicester City sometimes feature on the AM waveband only, and have you got good reception on there?
Hi Garry
Thanks for your good wishes regards Leicester City.
No, Radio Leicester onlu broadcast on FM, the AM frequency was given up some years ago and carries BBC Asian Network.
Anyway glad you got it sorted finally.
Dearne FM is all the way from Barnsley.
You were doing really well to pick that up must be a good 70 miles or more even.