Any way to better pick up radio station on clock radio?

[Slickone]

I have a clock radio at work that I'm trying to pick up an FM station with, but they don't have enough power, and even though their station is a couple blocks from me (downtown, hi-rise buildings), both of their antenna's are in surrounding suburbs. It comes in perfect on my digital tuner car stereo and pretty well on my home stereos, but when I try to tune it on my analog clock radio, it goes directly from the next station lower, to the next station higher, with no 'room' in between to hear the station I want (though occasionally I can barely hear it if I hold the antenna wire (I opened the radio and pulled it to hang out)). Can I make a cheap DIY antenna somehow that will help? My cubicle walls are 7ft tall so I can go that high. No stupid/mean remarks please. 😀

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Slickone
I have a clock radio at work that I'm trying to pick up an FM station with, but they don't have enough power, and even though their station is a couple blocks from me (downtown, hi-rise buildings), both of their antenna's are in surrounding suburbs. It comes in perfect on my digital tuner car stereo and pretty well on my home stereos, but when I try to tune it on my analog clock radio, it goes directly from the next station lower, to the next station higher, with no 'room' in between to hear the station I want (though occasionally I can barely hear it if I hold the antenna wire (I opened the radio and pulled it to hang out)). Can I make a cheap DIY antenna somehow that will help? My cubicle walls are 7ft tall so I can go that high. No stupid/mean remarks please. 😀

A few reasons come into paly of why you cannot pick that station out on the Radio you are talking about.

There are two kinds of radios now and the old style is really no longer able to "pick" stations out anymore as you have found out. Old analog only tuners cannot handle the close proximity of close carrier stations anymore. The FCC has shoehorned in so many stations that only the newer radios with digital tuners that handle the carrier cutoff frequencies better can "pick" out stations.

With your old analog tuner is also suffers from power overload, in that the strongest signal wins. You also see that happening.

Your best best is to get a digital tuner radio with an external antenna for the best chance to get that station in your cubicle.

Bear in mind that is not the same as digital radios like XM etc. Just look for digital tuner with the regular FM stations. Most folks at Radio Shacks should know the difference.