FM tuner antenna cable

[mix4fix]

Is there anything special about the average FM tuner antenna cable? Can you use regular wire?

[SoundMods]

Is there anything special about the average FM tuner antenna cable? Can you use regular wire?

In one word -- no. 300-ohm requires twin lead that has a characteristic impedance of 300-ohms. 75-ohm requires 75-ohm coax. If you wish to use coax on a 300-ohm input you require a balun transformer.

[brombo]

Are you talking about connecting an FM antenna to a tuner or receiver? Then the tuner or receiver input is almost always coaxial (RG-58 connector) these days and at the antenna end 300 Ohms so you need a 300 Ohm to 50 Ohm coax ballun transformer at the antenna. Also I think you can get almost any FM station steaming over the internet these days and you might want to see if that quality is good enough for you.

https://weta.org/player

You can also get a playlist -

https://weta.org/fm/playlists

[mix4fix]

I have FM tuner without an antenna or adapter. I just want to get it to work.

[brombo]

Example of indoor FM antenna -

https://www.amazon.com/TERK-Omni-Direct ... C86&sr=8-4

[SoundMods]

[quote="brombo"]Are you talking about connecting an FM antenna to a tuner or receiver? Then the tuner or receiver input is almost always coaxial (RG-58 connector) these days and at the antenna end 300 Ohms so you need a 300 Ohm to 50 Ohm coax ballun transformer at the antenna. Also I think you can get almost any FM station steaming over the internet these days and you might want to see if that quality is good enough for you.
The industry standard for FM tuners that dates back to the beginning has been 75-ohm (RG-59 or RG-6) and 300-ohm.

[SoundMods]

Example of indoor FM antenna -

https://www.amazon.com/TERK-Omni-Direct ... C86&sr=8-4

In lieu of an outdoor antenna the Terk product does a nice job.