My wife wants to listen to her favorite radio station on our home theater system.

She can listen to it in the car when out but gets poor reception.
My Denon receiver in the den with the included short wire FM antenna doesn't pick it up at all.

I would like to add an external antenna either in the attic or perhaps even better on an existing pole that used to have an over the air TV antenna on it. On the pole would require about 40 to 50 feet of cable run.

A quick search on Amazon returned over 5,000 results so I immediately decided to ask the collective here.

I want a quality good preforming device. Probably needs to be omnidirectional.

Suggestions?

Someone will be along shortly to recommend you call Crutchfield. That won't be bad advice.

I've done well with this Terk model.

For a stereo near a window that initially had very little FM radio reception, this worked well. I simply plugged it into the stereo and then ran the antenna wires along the window curtain rod.

FM Dipole Antenna - Male "F" connector

Three thoughts.

#1. Does her station have an Internet angle? If so, and if your receiver either supports Internet radio, or has Bluetooth, you may be able to play the station that way, without relying on signal boost.

#2. You may be able to get away with a powered antenna that would fit right near the receiver, and save you the trouble/cost of running long cables, etc. I've had good luck with Terk models over the years. If you get it from somewhere with good return policies, you will know whether it works long before the return period ends.

#3. If you are really focused on that one station, and you wind up going the antenna route, you may be able to use directional antennas, since you know (or can easily find out) where that one station broadcasts from, and orient the antenna that way.

I currently have a Sonos sound set up in my home, but back when I had a traditional home stereo system, I had a large FM antenna (looks like an old school TV antenna) in my attic and used a coaxial cable to connect to my stereo, with good success for local radio stations.

But there is a better solution and it greatly expands your listening choices. How about streaming music (including local stations) to your traditional stereo wirelessly? You would not only get your local radio stations (that stream music) but thousands of radio stations from around the world, commercial free internet radio stations, as well as stream music stored on your computer, phone, laptop or other device connected to your WiFi and operating as music storage. The only con is if you lose internet connectivity, you lose much of that ... except streaming music store digitally on your devices in your home ... and you might need that antenna after all if even only until internet is restored.

If interested in bringing your traditional stereo system into the 21st century with wireless streaming, there are a couple of things I'd do first in your specific case. First ... I'd check the website of the local radio station the wife likes most and see if they stream their broadcast over the internet and Second, if they do, I'd check some of the music streaming service such as TuneIn and see if they carry the station.

I wirelessly stream local radio stations and it doesn't cost me a cent. While music streaming services offer premium upgrades I just use the free versions. TuneIn has "Local Stations", iHeartRadio has "Nearby Stations" and Sonos Radio (because my home sound system is now Sonos) has "In Your Area". I have Amazon Prime, so stream Prime Music as well. Oh and most all the streaming services also offer podcasts and such as well.

There are many ways to setup wireless streaming to traditional home audio systems but I think the nicest, simplest and neatest way is with a Sonos Port (formally Sonos Connect). One piece of hardware to connect to the traditional system and streaming music controlled via the Sonos app on your mobile phone, tablet, laptop or computer. If you and the wife have multiple devices, you can install the free Sonos app on each one.

So if your traditional stereo is close enough to a WiFi router to stream music, why not unleash the literal whole entire wide world of music to your home system? ... "Sounds" good to me.

Sonos Port (only hardware you'll need) ... https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/port.html
How to set up Sonos Port and connect to WiFi ... https://www.support.com/how-to...onnect-to-wifi-13291

EDIT: Oh, and since I now have wireless music steaming in my home from virtually anywhere in the world and widely across the depth of any music genre, I don't listen to my "favorite" local station much anymore ... unless maybe I'm out and about in the Jeep.

EDIT 2: Just thinking outloud, if your traditional home stereo isn't in an area that provides a reliable connection to a WiFi router, you might could probably place the Sonos Port in area that is close enough to WiFi and just run longer audio cables from the Sonos Port to your home stereo. And if your stereo has several different "audio in" connections on the back, I'd try each one to see where the Sonos Port likes best.

Do you know how far away the station she likes is?

This may work for you:

https://www.amazon.com/Stellar...OZBI#customerReviews

quote:

Originally posted by bryan11:
For a stereo near a window that initially had very little FM radio reception, this worked well. I simply plugged it into the stereo and then ran the antenna wires along the window curtain rod.

FM Dipole Antenna - Male "F" connector

This is what I did with my old 3808Ci.

Wow! Ok thanks everyone... problem solved... two or three times over!

I decided to scrap the outdoor deal and try an indoor solution first mostly to avoid any increased lighting strike risk.

I have one of those FM wire dipole ones... I think, somewhere...

Hobbs got me thinking... I can stream to the receiver via Bluetooth or Airplay and the reciever is already connected via wifi and also hard wired via ethernet. And the station DOES stream 24/7 free on the internet! Even better... They have an app. AND the app also automatically downloaded to both my Apple TVs when I put it on my phone. Yea! Good to go Playing now!

I did also order the Terk FM Edge as recommended by a couple here as well, to hopefully improve the measly selection over air stations... 17 bucks on Amazon with Prime and free returns so why not?

THANK AGAIN everyone who replied!

Awesome ... only thing about Bluetooth is if you use a mobile device like a smart phone, it might run your mobile device battery down pretty quick. I don't have a smart phone but that's what "they" say. I'm retired, don't watch much TV and stream music to my Sonos system wirelessly all day every day mostly as background noise ... my own "mall music" LOL. So nice and easy when you find a few stations or a genre you like. There are tons of music sources out there to choose from via internet and (free) streaming services ... and I have over 4,000 songs stored on my computer I stream from sometimes via the Sonos app as well.