Aerial for FM and DAB

[sacwilliams]

Your advice would be apreciated,I intend to obtain an FM aerial for installation outside but owing to the intended upgrading to the DAB transmission is it posible to use an aerial that will accept both signals ?
Thank you in advance,
Colin.

 

[Sam Gangee]

Does anyone make one? DAB transmissions are vertically polarised whereas VHF/FM is usually horizontal (or mixed). Having said that, VHF/FM is picked up fairly well by most (vertical) car aerials so, provided that you are in a strong FM signal area, the aerial can be a piece of wire.

However, in most areas, a loft aerial works fine so why mess about. Install a VHF/FM aerial AND a DAB aerial in your loft and connect them to the drop cable via a diplexer. A Diplexer or simple splitter downstairs will usually suffice.

 

[roysplace]

you could try one of these
http://www.paragoncomponents.com/catalogue/product-71.aspx?c=4

 

[Sureitsoff?]

Forget the fancy FM halo and DAB aerial and simply fit an FM Half wave dipole aerial mounted vertically, sourced from here at only £12.50. Oh and save money too!


http://www.aerialsandtv.com/onlineaerials.html#FMandDAB

the halo FM aerial has a minus gain figure because of their design!!

test results

http://www.aerialsandtv.com/fmanddabradio.html

 

[Sam Gangee]

Just a word of warning. An FM folded dipole is around 1.5m wide and can look quite monstrous against a UHF TV aerial !

http://www.satcure.co.uk/accs/page11e.htm

 

[ericmark]

I noted the last aerial I bought says receive (RX) 25-1800MHz but the transmit (TX) was only on the 2 meter and 70 cm band plan.

And although a very high gain aerial may have a small band width one would hope one does not need a high gain aerial or what is the point of DAB?

Near everything you can receive on DAB is also available on the UHF terrestrial TV frequency and from satellite dishes so the only real point of DAB is so one can use a portable set using a non directional aerial which can be mounted on a car. Otherwise it's just a waste of band allocation.

I use a free to air satellite box, the only draw back is I have to switch on TV to see what station I am tuned to. It just shows a number on the set top box. The same applies to using a freeview box. Quality depends on box used of course using a box designed for HD TV will be using a better connection between box and Hifi than one with just two phono sockets.

174–240 MHz starts where the marine band stops so a dipole 820mm to 594mm. But since I have my router always powered up I don't see why I should have a radio at home unless super cheap. The internet receivers can't really call them radios as does not use radio waves, but they can receive far more than satellite or terrestrial radios so what's the point is the expense of a DAB which it seems is changing all the time where old DAB sets will not work with new DAB+. So sorry but to me it's a non starter. Likely it will follow Betamax, 8Track, the square aerial to scrap heap in the end when they finally admit it does not work in cars.

 

[dhutch]

Forget the fancy FM halo and DAB aerial and simply fit an FM Half wave dipole aerial mounted vertically, sourced from here at only £12.50.
http://www.aerialsandtv.com/onlineaerials.html#FMandDAB[/QUOTE]

Price has gone up! £15 now, plus £8 postage.


Daniel

 

[Lucid]

Hardly surprising since the thread was two and half years old. Congrats on resurrecting this one from the dead

 

[dhutch]

Hardly surprising since the thread was two and half years old. Congrats on resurrecting this one from the dead

Still as relevant as the day it was born!

 

[Lucid]

The information about the aerial, Yes.

But a post solely to comment on the price change....... really?

 

[ericmark]

I am sure one can make a slim jim aerial from some 300 ohm ribbon which will work A1. I really enjoyed playing with aerials and transmitted 5 watt on a 300 ohm ribbon slim jim.

I note you can get combiner and splitters for FM, DAB, TV, SAT so sure you can combine two aerials without any need for traps in the dipole.

It really annoys me to see modulation type (FM) and use (TV) mixed on same unit. My radio is marked with such a variation FM, AM, LW, MW, SW, Wide, Narrow, Mono, Stereo, (in spite of only having one speaker) BFO on/off with BFO pitch and RF Gain I wonder how many ever use all of these controls it's only a standard world band receiver which I use to take abroad with me for news etc.

Think some one pressed the "Execute" button as no longer works although more likely lack of batteries. With all this range what aerial well just a bit of long wire. Longer the better no need for cutting to special lengths for most stations OK for SSB maybe needed better aerial but you will note with all the letters saying what it receives it does not actually say single side band but with the BFO it would receive it.

Although there was a big push for DAB I think it has run out of steam. UHF with freeview and satellite broadcast the same programs as DAB only advantage of DAB is car use. So unless you can pick it up with a simple car aerial then no point in having it.

I have been in one car fitted with DAB and to be frank it was useless had to switch to FM as it kept cutting out or use the phone and internet which worked far better although eating into allocation. Road was a high open road E22 or A55 the longest road it would seem Holyhead to Ishim well past Moscow if it will not work on such a major road then it's dead and soon broadcasters will give up and shut down transmitters it's just a waste of band width.