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(More customer reviews)Amazon's price for this antenna was the best I could find. I ordered it on a Sunday before a Monday holiday and it was delivered the following Wednesday via their Super Saver free shipping, which I considered to be excellent service. This antenna looks better than a twin-lead dipole antenna, appears to be well-made, comes in an attractive box with a balun coil (matching transformer) for connecting to screw terminals and also an alligator clip for hooking it to a built-in antenna.
Since this antenna has received mixed reviews from other users I decided to be as "scientific," as my skills and equipment would allow. I used my training as an FCC licensed broadcast engineer to compare it to the standard twin-lead dipole antenna that was included free with my tuner. I had already oriented my existing dipole antenna for optimum reception, using my tuner's signal-strength indicators. I then used my tuner's scan mode to see how many stations it could find and I carefully wrote down the frequency and signal strength for each of the many stations that I can receive. Since I live about halfway between New York City and Philadelphia, my FM dial is crowded with stations.
After establishing a base-line of performance with my ordinary dipole antenna, I replaced it with the C. Crane FM Reflect Antenna and experimented with dozens of antenna positions to obtain best reception. Remarkably, mounting the C. Crane FM Reflect Antenna in the exact same position and location, that my twin-lead dipole antenna had been installed, gave me the best performance. After this optimum positioning, I once again used my tuner's scan mode to see how many stations it could find. I then carefully compared the signal strength from each station that my tuner found using the new antenna, with the signal strength that I had received with my previously-installed antenna. Although I saw no indication of a stronger signal on any of the existing stations, I was able to pick up two more stations in my tuner's scan mode with the new antenna.
As a percentage of the large number of stations that I could already receive at my location, I considered two additional stations a very small improvement. The difference easily could have been due to minor changes in atmospheric conditions between the tests. It was certainly not as dramatic as the improvement that I expected when comparing a $3 antenna with a $30 antenna. If you're using a good twin-lead dipole antenna and have adjusted its position for best reception, I believe that you'll need to upgrade to an outdoor antenna, such as the Winegard HD-6000 FM Stereo Antenna, to get a noticeable improvement. I could not find that the C. Crane FM Reflect Antenna is significantly better.
To understand why the results turned out as they did, it might be helpful to understand how antennas work. The most effective antenna elements in the FM and TV band are the length of the radio wave that they're tuned to receive. Our FM band extends from 88Mhz to 108Mhz, which represents a wavelengths from slightly more than 109 inches to slightly more than 134 inches. The higher the frequency, the shorter the wave.
A typical folded dipole antenna is about 61 inches wide, which is half the length of the average FM radio wave. Since the dipole is folded onto itself, it has an effective antenna length of about 122 inches, which is the average between the 109 inch and 134 inch wavelength extremes of the FM band.
There are several ways to increase the gain of an antenna. One way is to increase the number of active antenna elements that are exposed to the radio waves and connect them together. Another is to use a reflector to concentrate the radio waves onto the antenna. Satellite antennas, for example, reflect and concentrate very short waves onto a rigid dipole antenna by using a dish. Outdoor Yagi FM (and TV) antennas use multiple elements connected in tandem with reflecting elements in the rear to focus the antenna's sensitivity in a single direction. Such antennas are very efficient because they use both multiple elements and reflectors to increase gain.
Ultimately the Crane antenna, no matter how attractively it may be designed and packaged, cannot defy the laws of physics. It has only a single active T-shaped folded antenna element which is exactly the same as an inexpensive twin-lead folded dipole antenna. It is, therefore, not surprising that several reviewers including me, who have compared it to the cheap variety, have found that it gives no better reception.
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C. Crane FM Reflect Antenna
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