NPR on my desk radio at work fades in and out, while I get the religious

[morningglory]

station LOUD and CLEAR. I have a $70.00 portable stereo on my desk at work with the little 2' telescoping antenna. When I put my hand on the knob to try to tune in the station which is at the Junior College 3 miles away, the station comes in well while I have my hand on the box (I am the antenna then, I guess). I have A.D.D. and absolutely have to have something going on besides what I am supposed to be concentrating on. We are living on a very fixed, low income as bush economy survivors, so I do not want to invest in satellite radio until it settles down a bit more. I feel like it would be like picking Beta versus VCR in the early days. Anyway is there anything one could do to make it pick up the NPR station better, like putting a ball of tin foil on a raw turkey and sticking it on the antenna? Any hints? We have one of those $150.00 shelf stereos at home and it is not much better with the antenna wire running along the wall even though we are 12 miles away. Don't know how far that crappy religious station is...

[Warpy]

1. You can try a cheap TV antenna

or just try the wad of tinfoil on the one you have now.

[stevedeshazer]

2. Is your NPR staion AM or FM?

I could help more if I knew which. :)

[morningglory]

10. FM

[Trillo]

3. Check out a directional FM antenna

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&c2coff=1&as_qdr=all&q=+directional+fm+antenna&btnG=Search

You might even be able to adjust the telescoping one to decrease the strength of the unwanted signal. I've read that a horizontal wire antenna works pretty well, it could probably be stapled to the ceiling at an angle and length that detunes the station you don't want.

[Up2Late]

4. A lot of times, if you raise up the power cord...

...and reposition it a bit, that might help.

Also, if it has a place for an external antenna, try getting an amplified (plug in) antenna from Radio Shack.

If it doesn't have a external connection, do the same thing, but get some large gage Copper wire and connect it between the radios antenna and the Radio Shack Antenna, that might help.

No guarantees though.

BTW, I'm A.D.D. too.

[morningglory]

11. Dislexics Untie!!!!!

[Up2Late]

16. LOL!

What? Oh sorry, I wasn't listening.:evilgrin:

[CrazyOrangeCat]

5. electronic stores (even Radio Shack) . . .

sell antennaes that boost the signal you're trying to tune in. They aren't expensive, but they do have to be plugged into a power strip.

Must avoid religious stations, at all costs!

O8)

[Poiuyt]

6. Have you checked with the FCC?

It's possible that the religious station is exceeding their licensed power or bandwidth. The FCC doesn't take to kindly to one station interfering with another.

You might also try the C. Crane Company. They sell some high quality radios and antennas.

[burrowowl]

7. I've bitched to the FCC several times

from interference from high powered stations allowing drift to super loud commercials and .....
ZILCH!

[TheBaldyMan]

8. anyway to listen on the net via RealPlayer. Winamp or WMP ?

I'm based in the UK and it's the only way I can isten to foreign stations, as well as local stations because the reception is dreadful for some BBC stations where I live. There is a website that lists public radio stations from around the world with live streaming feeds

Public Radio Fan website is here

most of them have a low bandwidth (approx. 20-40kb) stream that works OK for speech stations and doesn't hog bandwidth too much.

edited for spelling and typos

[BrewerJohn]

9. Can the telescoping antenna swivel to horizontal

or is it fixed vertical? If it can swivel, turn it to horizontal and experiment
with pointing it in different directions to find one that nulls out the interference.
(Even a simple rod antenna has some directivity, but the directivity is only useful
if it is oriented close to parallel with the ground.)

If it is fixed in a vertical position, you can find a piece of wire about the same
length, retract the antenna and wrap the (bare) end of the wire around the end of
it. Now you have the equivalent situation as the above and can experiment.

If your radio happens to have a connection for an external antenna, you can look
into a horizontal dipole or more directional antenna as mentioned upthread.

[LeftHander]

12. Solar activity.....

yesterday. Check for sunspots and solar flare activity here: http://www.sec.noaa.gov/rt_plots/xray_5m.html they can have an effect on radio and TV reception.

I get NPR and other stations dropping out on days of high activity and I live in a metro area.

[LeftHander]

13. Oh and set your radio to MONO

That will clean up a FM station considerably....on days of bad stereo reception.

[MadHound]

14. How many watts does your local NPR station put out?

A lot of college stations are pretty low powered affairs. We have one here that cranks out at five watts, and you can't get it more than a couple miles away. We had another one that use to push its signal through the phone system, in order to pick it up you had to place your radio next to the wall where the phone lines ran.

Crappy religious stations however have been jumping up their signal strength for decades now. They want to insure that every non-religious person can indeed hear them. In fact there have been on again, off again problems with religious stations bleeding their signals over into frequencies that they don't control, big no-no, but they still do so on occaission.

What you might do is head down to Radio Shack or some other electronics store and pick up an antenna that will boost a weak signal. It shouldn't cost you much.

[catmandu57]

15. Can you listen on the web?

I have the same problem, there is a program I like on Sunday night, if the weather is right, forget it. All that will come in is people howling about who jaysus hates, sometime repositioning the power cord will help, it would be best though if you just webcast.