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WOSU AM Listeners should switch to 89.7 FM
November 30, 2011
by Tom Rieland
WOSU General Manager
Effective December 9, 2011, WOSU Public Media will no longer broadcast its NPR and local news programming schedule on 820 AM, which has been duplicated over the past year on 89.7 FM in central Ohio.
READ MORE: http://beta.wosu.org/tomrieland/wosu-am-listeners-should-switch-to-89-7-fm/
alexs
Limestone bluffs of the Scioto
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RIP 820, I'll miss you.
I'm one of the many people who often gets poor reception of 89.7 FM. The signal quality can drop depending on where I am in the room. Such as, go to the kitchen sink and the signal goes to static, no matter how I tweak the tuner or orient the antenna. It depends on the weather, too.
melikecheese
Merion Village
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If you get poor FM stations there is one thing you can try, Use a wire that is 12 feet long for the antenna. The average wavelength of a FM signal is 10 to 12 feet, using a wire that length can get you the best signal.
My father taught me this when I was 13 and couldn't get the punk rock show on Sunday nights from the little station somewhere. It worked well.
I had to give up 820 when I lost AM in my car, I've missed it ever since.
Rockmastermike
CORNspiracy HQ
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melikecheese said:
If you get poor FM stations there is one thing you can try, Use a wire that is 12 feet long for the antenna. The average wavelength of a FM signal is 10 to 12 feet, using a wire that length can get you the best signal.My father taught me this when I was 13 and couldn't get the punk rock show on Sunday nights from the little station somewhere. It worked well.
I had to give up 820 when I lost AM in my car, I've missed it ever since.
Any half or quarter wavelength size works too. It's all about the resonance. FM is 3 meter wavelength. 1.5 meter and .75 meter are the sweet spots. Most dedicated FM receive antennas are quarter wavelength. The dipoles they sell with stereo gear are 1/4 wave for each of the two wires (half-wave in total when hung up).
In this part of town (near to the towers) on a lot of radios the longer antennas will cause nearby strong signals to totally overload the receiver and cause lots of interference (e.g. 99.7, 96.3 and WNCI on EVERY frequency).
Basically if you're getting other stations over-riding 89.7, a SHORTER antenna will likely be your solution. If you're getting actual weak-signal static you need a longer (or better tuned) antenna.
I've found in my case I have to just use a paperclip to avoid the overload and get good reception of a lot of things. Some radios are just a lost cause here because they have a big built-in antenna and I would have to crack open the case to remove it. :( Such is the case with my shower radio. To listen to 102.5 (which gets over-ridden by a harmonic of 99.7) on that one I have to turn on a receiver with a paperclip antenna and pipe the output to a secondary transmitter on another frequency.
Unfortunately the small portable MP3recorder/receiver unit I like to use with headphones uses the headphones as the FM antenna so I can use an 1/8" jack cut off at about an inch of wire to get good recordings, but if I try to listen with headphones it overloads the front-end and I get crap. That unit has a built-in AM ferrite antenna so it ALWAYS gets great AM reception no matter what.
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