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<\/a><\/p>\nI had a plan. My bedroom was on the corner of the first floor of our house, and my Dad had a nice, sturdy ladder. I was going to drill a hole through the side of the house in order to bring the twin lead to my QX-8000 in the bedroom. I knew the 6-element Finco FM-4G was $17.15, while the 10-element Lafayette FM \u201cdouble driven\u201d model (with a whopping 10\u2013foot boom) was just $11.95.\u00a0 Plus, I\u2019d need about 50 feet of 300 ohm twin lead at $2.29, a five foot antenna mast at $1.49, heavy duty 4\u201d wall brackets at $4.78, several wood screw insulators to hold the twin lead where it would run down the wall from the roof, a lightning arrestor, and a ground rod and ground wire for another $9. Then, the piece de resistance, I would need a plastic tube about 3\/4 inch in diameter and about 13 inches long for $1.19. As I totaled up my expenditure in my head, I realized I was going to have more change left over from the $50 I had burning in my pocket (part time jobs really pay off) if I bought the bigger, but cheaper, Lafayette antenna instead of the Finco!\u00a0 The total would be about $35 plus my labor (yes, I\u2019m referencing the 1973 Lafayette catalog, that I still have, to confirm these prices!).\u00a0 I paid the cashier, loaded up my goodies in my hand-me-down Corvair, and headed back home.<\/p>\n
While the installation took me way longer than I expected (about four hours) the FM antenna was finally installed.\u00a0 I had completed the job safely, only teetering on the roof once during a sudden gust of wind, but the sturdy mast saved me when I grabbed hold of it!\u00a0 I also realized that I had to shove some gunk into the tube entering the house, so that it wouldn\u2019t be a direct path for insects.\u00a0 Wadded up bubblegum seemed do the trick\u2026but I later changed that to insulating foam.\u00a0 The Pioneer QX-8000 sounded great on FM, although I was surprised that the signal strength meter didn\u2019t show much of a jump in gain.\u00a0 However, since the multipath was highly reduced on WHFS, I was pleased over all.<\/p>\n
I could hardly wait to show my parents my big accomplishment when they returned home Sunday afternoon!\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have to tell them, though.\u00a0 When they pulled up in the driveway my mother instantly saw the antenna and shrieked, with hands to her face, \u201coh my God, Bob (sounded like \u201cBawb\u201d with her New England accent), he\u2019s ruined the looks of our house!\u201d\u00a0 No amount explaining how much better my FM reception sounded could calm my mother down.\u00a0 You\u2019d have thought I\u2019d painted the house orange (which \u201cBawb\u201d later did, although it was supposed to be \u201cHarvest Gold\u201d\u2026but that\u2019s another story).\u00a0 I could tell my father was slightly amused and, I hoped, impressed enough with my newfound antenna installation skills that he could stave off the punishment my mother was demanding in exchange for her loss of curb-appeal.<\/p>\n
The following week my father revealed my punishment: buy them a TV antenna with Alliance U-100 rotator for the TV in the family room.\u00a0\u00a0 The real punishment was not, however, my financial outlay for that purchase.\u00a0 The real punishment was that, despite my proven new-found skills, I was not allowed to help\u2014but watch my father install their new antenna to a vent chimney on the roof, standing in the backyard, poised to call for help if he fell.<\/p>\n
My mother, upon seeing the new, added structure shooting from the vent chimney was further horrified.\u00a0 But, our Montgomery Wards color TV (our first color TV!) now had a fantastic picture with no ghosting on any channels.\u00a0\u00a0 Even she had to admit that the antenna effected a huge improvement to their television viewing.<\/p>\n
However, much to my surprise, he had only mounted the antenna about one foot above the rotator!\u00a0 He could have mounted it another three feet higher!\u00a0 What was up with that! Surely you want to mount an antenna up as high as possible for best reception and lack of interference.\u00a0 I guess that was his one consolation to Mom; make it a teeny bit less noticeable from the front of the house.\u00a0 My antenna, on the other hand, could be seen from any angle in the neighborhood!\u00a0 I was so proud!\u00a0 Oh, and the \u00be inch hole I drilled through the wall of the house to run the antenna wire through the plastic tube?\u00a0 Well, my Mother never saw that until they sold the house and retired to Florida a few years later.\u00a0 I had proudly shown that piece of work to my Dad who stated at the time, \u201cpretty nifty\u2026And\u00a0NEVER\u00a0<\/em>show that to your Mother\u201d.\u00a0 It was hidden from view behind my stereo equipment thank goodness.<\/p>\n But folks, that\u2019s not the end of this story.\u00a0\u00a0 I mentioned at the beginning that this experience taught me a bit about wires and grounding.\u00a0 How so?\u00a0 Well, after settling in a bit with my new antenna system for my QX-8000, I became a bit underwhelmed by the RF gain.\u00a0 (I still have the QX-8000 although it\u2019s languishing in my attic, lonely).\u00a0\u00a0 I decided that maybe I should have bought the more expensive, albeit shorter, Finco FM4G antenna.\u00a0 So, off to Lafayette I went about six months later and bought one.\u00a0 I decided that two is always better than one, so I replaced the five foot mast with a ten foot mast and mounted\u00a0both\u00a0<\/em>antennas on the same mast, one pointed towards metro Washington DC, and the other towards Baltimore.\u00a0 I added another twin lead wire to the new Finco and installed a \u201cknife-switch\u201d.\u00a0 (Remember those?\u00a0 They looked like a mini version of the switch Dr. Frankenstein used to bring his monster to life).\u00a0 The knife switch allowed me to switch between the two antennas depending on which station I wanted to listen to. \u00a0The new twin lead connected to the Finco antenna had some kind of foamed insulation, so I experimented by switching the wires where they connected to the two antennas on the roof to compare the wires.\u00a0 I discovered the slightly older wire actually had better signal strength.\u00a0 My first realization that wires do make a difference!<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t think she\u2019d notice, but soon Mom wanted to know why there were suddenly two antennas where there was formerly only one.\u00a0 She complained about this until I finally decided that the Finco FM4G was a better antenna than the Lafayette antenna\u2014it was more selective and had better gain despite being shorter, better tuning and spacing of the elements no doubt.\u00a0 \u201cHmmm,\u201d I thought, \u201cSave up a bit more money and I can take down the Lafayette and put an Alliance U-100 rotator on that mast so I can aim the Finco in any direction.\u00a0 No more need for a second antenna.\u201d\u00a0 And that is what I did!\u00a0 This change also eliminated the knife switch, meaning there was one less junction for the signal to pass through.\u00a0 Eventually, I even tried using a coax, shielded 75-ohm cable versus an unshielded 300-ohm twin lead for less noise pick up. However, since that also means you lose a bit of signal strength, I eventually settled on the twin lead.\u00a0 My multipath worries were eliminated by the use of the rotator, and I could relax without further modifications to my FM antenna set-up.\u00a0 Being a big Red Sox fan, I often tried to listen to games at night on AM with the QX-8000 receiver, but the noise level was often too annoying.\u00a0 I discovered that by running a ground wire from the AM antenna ground tap on the back of the receiver to the FM antenna\u2019s ground rod outside, I could improve the AM performance pretty dramatically.\u00a0 This provided a much, much lower noise level so that the signal I was seeking could emerge from the background.\u00a0 A proper ground is a must in an audio system, and I can\u2019t overemphasize how much that will take the performance of your system to an even higher level.<\/p>\n Oh, and speaking of my old FM antenna set-up at the old family house\u2014out of curiosity, I drove by that house on a business trip\u2026 and lo and behold, the FM antenna and mast were still mounted on the roof!\u00a0 Strangely enough though, no twin lead-connecting cable could be seen.\u00a0 I guess there are no audiophiles living there anymore!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
\nThis is why I was so excited to work with Nordost\u2019s QRT Power Products<\/a>. Our QRT QBASE<\/a> distribution bar helps establish a common ground in your system and eliminates ground loops. I had thought the QBASE was the end-all-be-all in grounding, until we released our QKORE<\/a> products last summer.\u00a0 The QKORE dramatically reduces the noise level in a system by creating a clean, artificial earth, which has a dramatic and positive effect on the sound\u2014bass becomes tighter, extends lower, and becomes more powerful.\u00a0 The overall image moves further out into the room and extends beyond the boundaries of the speakers.\u00a0 It\u2019s really quite dramatic, and has to be heard to be believed! For my mother\u2019s sake, I wish I had those products when I was a teen, I could have hid them much better than a rooftop antenna!<\/p>\n