Radio Reception

[ShortbusFlasher]

Stupid question, but does the antenna on the trailer work for radio also or just the TV? If just the TV, is there a signal booster you've used to pick up radio further out from towns?

[TurnThePage]

My OEM radio had a cable going up also. When I upgraded it, I found the antenna cable simply laid along the rafters in the roof. My new radio is HD, so I took the time to install an aftermarket antenna, which works quite well.

[tdsxt51]

moresmoke wrote:
I use my batwing for an FM antenna. My radio came with just a wire for an antenna. I made a short coax that will plug into the radio and connect to the tv antenna jack on the wall. I'm sure its not perfect and better reception could be achieved, but its good enough for my purposes.

Yes, that will work, but how is the cable coming out from behind the radio plug into the jack on the wall? A cleaner installation is to add a splitter behind the TV antenna jack and run your short piece of coax to the radio. That's how I did it anyway.

[moresmoke]

I use my batwing for an FM antenna. My radio came with just a wire for an antenna. I made a short coax that will plug into the radio and connect to the tv antenna jack on the wall. I'm sure its not perfect and better reception could be achieved, but its good enough for my purposes.

[Cajun_Bill]

An update: In fooling around with the wires connected to the antenna jack on the back of the radio, I noticed that when I disconnected the cable going up in the wall (which I assume goes to my omnidirectional TV antenna), my fm reception improved dramatically with just the small piece of coax that comes off the antenna jack. It appears that not only does the omni not do any good for reception, it actually hurts it.

For this reason, I ordered an $11 replacement antenna from Amazon that comes with an F connector. I plan to connect that antenna to the outside "cable/satellite" connector and then see if my reception improves more.

[MFL]

Cajun Bill wrote:
I posted this on the Forest River forum, but just trying to expand the possibility of getting a response:

I searched the forum and found nothing that pertains to my particular issue. Here it is: I bought a used 2014 Grey Wolf, 26DBH a few months ago and while I know it is an entry level TT, it suits my needs at this point. I'm trying to improve the capability of being able to catch more AM and FM radio stations and as far as I can tell, there is no exterior antenna connected to the Jensen radio that came with the TT. I'm guessing it uses some kind of internal antenna, but because the exterior "skin" of the camper is metal, its reception sucks. I get adequate TV reception off the omni "flying saucer" antenna so I have no complaints about that. I would like to install a radio antenna to improve the reception, but I'm not even sure the Jensen even has a place to plug in such an antenna if I can figure out how to run the coax for it. If I have to replace the radio (which I know is a cheapo), that's fine, but just wondering what the "gear heads" think of using a satellite coax? (Which the original owner apparently had for sat system that is no longer present.) It would seem to me that I could simply get the necessary connectors to attach on both ends to utilize this wire to connect an antenna thereby eliminating the need to run another coax.

Now, second question, assuming this might work, which antenna is recommended? I have a simple rubber whip on my boat radio which seems to work fine. Just wondering what is recommended by the group?

Update: decided that I should do more homework before asking the forum for help. Took the Jensen system out of the cabinet and there is, what appears to be, an antenna wire plugged into the Jensen, but I can only trace it into the wall and appears that it is headed up toward the roof. The omni TV antenna is about five feet away from where this wire would go if it is indeed headed up to the roof. I'm guessing that it goes into the omni because there is no antenna on the roof nor is there the remnants of such anywhere on the roof. Does an omni support AM/FM in addition to TV?

Like I mentioned above, my omni TV antenna is also for my radio, and the FM is great!! TV reception, not so much, unless close to towers. I use a Jack, on a mast, when needed, for more distant TV towers.

Jerry

[DrewE]

The FM radio band is right smack in the middle of the VHF TV band, so basically any VHF TV antenna will work decently for FM radio (unless there's a notch filter to cut it out, which seems rather pointless to my limited understanding but could be done). Likewise, most simple antenna amplifiers for TV use would also work well with FM radio.

There may be a little bit of fiddling needed to adapt and impedance match the feedlines to the radio, but even that should be pretty simple. I think most FM receivers these days expect a 75 ohm antenna impedance, and I believe that's also standard for TV coaxial inputs.

[Cajun_Bill]

I posted this on the Forest River forum, but just trying to expand the possibility of getting a response:

I searched the forum and found nothing that pertains to my particular issue. Here it is: I bought a used 2014 Grey Wolf, 26DBH a few months ago and while I know it is an entry level TT, it suits my needs at this point. I'm trying to improve the capability of being able to catch more AM and FM radio stations and as far as I can tell, there is no exterior antenna connected to the Jensen radio that came with the TT. I'm guessing it uses some kind of internal antenna, but because the exterior "skin" of the camper is metal, its reception sucks. I get adequate TV reception off the omni "flying saucer" antenna so I have no complaints about that. I would like to install a radio antenna to improve the reception, but I'm not even sure the Jensen even has a place to plug in such an antenna if I can figure out how to run the coax for it. If I have to replace the radio (which I know is a cheapo), that's fine, but just wondering what the "gear heads" think of using a satellite coax? (Which the original owner apparently had for sat system that is no longer present.) It would seem to me that I could simply get the necessary connectors to attach on both ends to utilize this wire to connect an antenna thereby eliminating the need to run another coax.

Now, second question, assuming this might work, which antenna is recommended? I have a simple rubber whip on my boat radio which seems to work fine. Just wondering what is recommended by the group?

Update: decided that I should do more homework before asking the forum for help. Took the Jensen system out of the cabinet and there is, what appears to be, an antenna wire plugged into the Jensen, but I can only trace it into the wall and appears that it is headed up toward the roof. The omni TV antenna is about five feet away from where this wire would go if it is indeed headed up to the roof. I'm guessing that it goes into the omni because there is no antenna on the roof nor is there the remnants of such anywhere on the roof. Does an omni support AM/FM in addition to TV?

[wa8yxm]

The Winegard "Batwing" works for TV only.. In theory there is no reason you could not feed it to an FM radio, but I am told Winegard took steps to insure that will not work (Filtered the output so there is no FM) there are valid reasons for doing this which I do not wish to go into.

No reason you can not hang an Omni Directional FM (S shaped loop) on top of the Batwing or elsewhere in the area for FM

For AM. the longest WHIP you can lay your hands on is best.

[ShortbusFlasher]

Just the "T" antenna on top that screws up and down from inside. Not the car looking whip one. Sounds like its TV only, might look to see if the radio has a port to add one. Thank you all

[CavemanCharlie]

I think we would need the make and model of your RV along with the make and model of your radio before we could give a good answer.

Does your RV have only on top ? Or does it have a antenna on it that looks like car antenna ?

[Shadow_Catcher]

Very good question. They will work if you rout around the amplifier which often have a trap to reduce interference.

[MFL]

It depends on what antenna you have. My round omni tv antenna is also the radio antenna. I think the more common tv antennas, such as the bat wing style, are tv only.

Jerry