• Registered: 2011-03-24
  • Posts: 3

Topic: Better FM antenna thought...

Hello -

I live out in the country and all of my radios struggle without some sort of antenna augmentation, let alone my little Chumby One...

I looked at a rather terse datasheet for the FM chip, mostly block diagrams:

http://www.quinticcorp.com/PDF/QN8005B_ … 111909.pdf

Pin 7 is RFI and the orgin point of the current antenna, it looks like.  Pin 8 is RFI ground, which looks like it traces over to the "normal" ground on the edge of that PCB.

My tentative questions regarding this information are:

- Why not connect a folded dipole of some sort to these two points?
- What would the input impedance need to be to be most effective?  How sensitive or flexible is that value?

Disclaimer:  I am not an EE by any stretch and I only know a little about AM radio theory, let alone FM, so please tell me why this will not work.  :-)

Thanks!

  • Registered: 2011-03-24
  • Posts: 3

Re: Better FM antenna thought...

Come to think of it has anyone worked with the (lack of) built in 802.11 antenna, while I'm thinking of it?  As the frequencies get higher, I typically get less and less knowledgeable, but the only solutions I have found online are external devices, new hardware, etc.

I really like the foil signal director posted here, I think, but this is to be a gift of my sister, who is not as amused by such things.  :-)