FM Radio Antenna

I live in the city facing the ocean will a giant hill behind me. I have trouble getting most radio stations but I really love listening to my local radio station and have invested a lot of time and money in my stereo/speakers throughout the house/garden etc.

Often my favorite station fades in and out--its a college station 88.1Mhz and is usually very strong.

I read about how to build an antenna by wrapping wires around a square frame at certain dimensions and have mounted it inside my attic. I used 14G speaker wire (single) to wrap the frame and connected it to a coax cable via a balun/adaptor at both ends of the cable running through the wall to the stereo.

I believe the balun does some type of modification to the signal and I am wondering if having two of them (one on each end) is a problem. I've also read that there are so many different types of baluns that you never really know exactly how one brand will work compared to another.

Essentially, I am using them to simply make a connection between the wires on the antenna to the coax, and from the coax to my stereo. I have a receiver that provides a signal meter and used it to test the signal--it made little difference on the 88.1 (even though I built the antenna especially for that end of the spectrum) station but increased reception on other stations by around 20-30%--so I know there is at least a connection but I still dont get the "super-solid" signal I was expecting for my effort.

I took electronics in high-school 30+ years ago and and I have no soldering gun so I am trying to do this with caveman-level mechanical skills and the advice from anyone who responds to this posting!



Chuck

Thank you all for your responses. I guess what I am specifically asking about it whether or not using the baluns to convert from the coax to "spade" terminal connectors at both ends is negating the antenna's effectiveness. The tuner has connections for either 300 or 75 Ohm but I seem to get the same results either way--essentially a marginal increase in reception. I am using a pre-fab coax cable with factory connectors and a balun at each end because I didn't want to have to deal with stripping/crimping/soldering, etc. and those were the only things I found. I had the blissful ignorant's optimism that this setup would just work. Now I'm left question every component in the system; are the two baluns too much?, is one balun too much?, is the extra coax cable coiled up under the house bad? If I get rid of the baluns how do I connect the ends of the coax cable to the antenna (14g speaker wire) and the stereo (thumb screw posts)?, does my tuner have an issue? Should I connect up my iPod and forget about the radio? (KJAZZ is getting more like "the Wave" (soft jazz and Kenny G-type stuff) more an more everyday :-/ I don't know where to start but my guess is that the two baluns is not good--I also don't have a simple way of measuring the effectiveness of the antenna (can an ohm/volt meter be used?) I had a semester of electronics in high school so I'm not afraid of using a soldering iron (much, anymore) so if removing the baluns and creating my own connections is recommended I can go that route--but some direction on how to do it would be appreciated.

Sorry for the run-on reply--I spend a lot of time "wondering" about this since I spent a lot of time making the antenna, mounting it in the attic and running the cable down to the receiver. Before I had much time to do anything about it we decided to move the stereo (console) and so its been disconnected for a while but now got the speakers and antenna re-connected. Its important to me that I maintain the pure analog nature of the signal/sound source (I'm using all c.1972 equipment/components and I'm probably a little OCD) which is why I haven't gone with a more off-the-shelf or digital kinda setup.

"The balun doesn't "modulate" anything; it just converts the antenna to an impedance that is compatible with the cabling you're using.."

Okay, so if I understand that statement, the fact that I'm using the two baluns wouldn't / shouldn't affect the effectiveness of the antenna/cable's capability of transmitting the signal?

"Come to think of it, since you already have the coax laid out, you might try it without the antenna and see what happens."
I may just do that--I can't remember if I tried that yet--it'd be a shame though if my super-cool antenna wasn't being used. :-/

"There's also a chance that the signal is sailing right over your antenna due to land features and all you need is some elevation."
The antenna is in the attic, I'm not inclined to go any higher. Come to think of it though--I think what mostly disturbs my radio reception may be occasional interference of some nature and that seems to have gotten better since I hooked this all up.

I will try disconnecting the antenna itself and see how that goes--thank you!