Connecting A Better Antenna For The Insignia Portable

[hubcity]

Given that the headphones double as the antenna for the Insignia portable, any clues as to how one might be able to connect a really good antenna?  (Say a VHF TV antenna, for instance?)

I'd like to use an C. Crane FM transmitter to redistribute an HD2 to the other FM radios in the house (rather than needlessly bumping up my Internet usage and/or relying on my MP3 collection) and if I can get a better signal with a better antenna, that might be useful.

[Chuck]

I though the big deal about this radio is the fact that it is "portable."  Connecting a 6+ foot long Yagi to it certainly kills the portability factor.

Why don't you buy a Sony XDR-F1HD tuner for about $80 from Amazon.com?  It is an excellent analog tuner and about as good as it gets in the HD department.  More importantly, it runs on AC power, has a standard F Connector for an outdoor antenna, and has a couple of RCA outputs which would interface nicely with your CCrane FM modulator.

[XavierRenegade]

Given that the headphones double as the antenna for the Insignia portable, any clues as to how one might be able to connect a really good antenna?  (Say a VHF TV antenna, for instance?)

I'd like to use an C. Crane FM transmitter to redistribute an HD2 to the other FM radios in the house (rather than needlessly bumping up my Internet usage and/or relying on my MP3 collection) and if I can get a better signal with a better antenna, that might be useful.

I don't know what to suggest. This Insignia HD radio is so small that it wasn't really intended to be able to have an external antenna attached to it. The radio was made to be played with headphones. The headphones act as antenna and or a signal booster so you can receive radio stations with it. I read the other post suggesting the one Sony HD radio but that's not portable.

The whole idea of even wanting this Insignia HD radio  is it can be fit into a pocket. Coby is the only other company that makes an HD radio the size of MP3 player. That costs at least $90 much more expensive than the Insignia radio which is $50. I wish I could get a better signal with the radio but What do you expect?

[stormy01]

If you're not concerned about invalidating the warranty or returning the device, why not "mod" it? An antenna jack mounted on the radio would be convenient when you're home, and then unplug it when you go 'mobile'. I would try to find a miniature antenna jack and plug and be very careful about opening the receiver up and making sure there is enough room inside to mount the jack. If there is no space to mount a jack then perhaps you could trace to where the headphone jack wiring is connected to the tuner and experiment with attaching a miniature coaxial cable with antenna attached to the point on the circuit board where there seems to be an improvement in signal strength (keep the headphone/ear buds wiring rolled up so that it performs inefficiently while you are testing with an external antenna)  It will probably be difficult to route the antenna wiring to come out of the radio's case. I would not recommend a preamp for the external antenna - on reading posts about this radio, the radio apparently has plenty of sensitivity - you may risk damaging the tuner with 'front-end' overload.

After reading this, I 'betcha' rather not go through all this trouble and I agree with the other posters that recommend instead to buy a component tuner like the Sony...

[hubcity]

The whole idea of even wanting this Insignia HD radio  is it can be fit into a pocket. Coby is the only other company that makes an HD radio the size of MP3 player. That costs at least $90 much more expensive than the Insignia radio which is $50. I wish I could get a better signal with the radio but What do you expect?

Well, to be honest, it wasn't so much the Insignia radio I wanted in my pocket - what I really wanted in my pocket was the additional $50 I didn't pay for a table model.  Plus, now, I can unplug from the antenna at work, plug it in in the car, listen there, then take it home and plug it into my home setup for home listening - sort of the way Sirius and XM set up their portable tuners initially.

My quirk, I guess, is that unless I'm at the beach I rarely use earbud headphones, so I'm not really looking to have it do that (even though it's the one use it's set up for right out of the box.)  Anywhere else (like in the car, or at home with family about) I prefer to listen over speakers and have the freedom to react to other noises (like that created by an oncoming car, or by my daughter asking me to find something for her.)  So I guess the "portability" feature is, for me, a "transportability" feature; I don't have to spend money for a setup in each of those locations, I just power down the radio and take it with me.

I'd have to guess that the headphone ground wire is what's used as the antenna lead; if that's true, the task is:

- Plug in a splitter to make two headphone jacks available.

- Make it so that the jack leading to sound output isn't contributing received signal to the "antenna"

- Make it so that the jack leading to the antenna actually does that, and takes full advantage of the antenna that gets attached. Headphones are effective, clearly, but I'd bet getting an actual antenna attached and working would be even better.

So that's what I'm looking for help on.  Anyone?

[hubcity]

If you're not concerned about invalidating the warranty or returning the device, why not "mod" it? An antenna jack mounted on the radio would be convenient when you're home, and then unplug it when you go 'mobile'. I would try to find a miniature antenna jack and plug and be very careful about opening the receiver up and making sure there is enough room inside to mount the jack. If there is no space to mount a jack then perhaps you could trace to where the headphone jack wiring is connected to the tuner and experiment with attaching a miniature coaxial cable with antenna attached to the point on the circuit board where there seems to be an improvement in signal strength (keep the headphone/ear buds wiring rolled up so that it performs inefficiently while you are testing with an external antenna)  It will probably be difficult to route the antenna wiring to come out of the radio's case. I would not recommend a preamp for the external antenna - on reading posts about this radio, the radio apparently has plenty of sensitivity - you may risk damaging the tuner with 'front-end' overload.

After reading this, I 'betcha' rather not go through all this trouble and I agree with the other posters that recommend instead to buy a component tuner like the Sony...

Nah - things I "mod" tend to rapidly become things that "don't work".  Apparently, anything you plug into the earphone jack becomes the antenna; I just want to optimize the capability that's already there.

[stormy01]

That's good you have figured out what to do without having to tear into the unit: thank goodness! - let us know how the splitter arrangement works.

[Play Freebird]

A good high gain antenna (outdoor, or attic-mounted yagi) with RG-6 coax down to the radio should work quite well.   Nothing beats antenna height and REAL gain, which comes with physical size.   Forget about small amplified indoor antennas, they will just boost the interference from PC's and other microprocessor stuff. 

Connect the center conductor of the coax to the outer conductor of the headphone jack, and attach a 30" piece of wire on the outer conductor of the coax to act as a counterpoise.  You may need to move this wire around to get the best results.   

To isolate the headphone cable so that it doesn't act as an additional antenna, wrap a turn or two through a ferrite core as close as possible to the connector.

I have used this technique successfully to connect an external antenna to my old Sony SRF-40W FM-only Walkman, which is an excellent-sounding receiver.   If you can find one of these at a good price, snap it up - it's an analog classic:

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f15/sonys-srf-40w-original-fm-stereo-walkman-wow-31357/

[hubcity]

A good high gain antenna (outdoor, or attic-mounted yagi) with RG-6 coax down to the radio should work quite well.   Nothing beats antenna height and REAL gain, which comes with physical size.   Forget about small amplified indoor antennas, they will just boost the interference from PC's and other microprocessor stuff. 

Connect the center conductor of the coax to the outer conductor of the headphone jack, and attach a 30" piece of wire on the outer conductor of the coax to act as a counterpoise.  You may need to move this wire around to get the best results.   

To isolate the headphone cable so that it doesn't act as an additional antenna, wrap a turn or two through a ferrite core as close as possible to the connector.

I have used this technique successfully to connect an external antenna to my old Sony SRF-40W FM-only Walkman, which is an excellent-sounding receiver.   If you can find one of these at a good price, snap it up - it's an analog classic:

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f15/sonys-srf-40w-original-fm-stereo-walkman-wow-31357/

Now yer talkin'.  Though I shouldn't get half-bad results if I do use an amplified antenna, but turn off the amplification?  (I just happen to have one, y'see, and I'd like to get a result there before putting up a good yagi - and that's where I get to spend the $50 I saved...and then some...though I suppose I could stick with VHF and use it for digital TVs, yes?)

Question: why the counterpoise?  (Yep, this is Antenna Theory 101, but look at it this way - you get better analog results, too...)

[Play Freebird]

Now yer talkin'.  Though I shouldn't get half-bad results if I do use an amplified antenna, but turn off the amplification?  (I just happen to have one, y'see, and I'd like to get a result there before putting up a good yagi - and that's where I get to spend the $50 I saved...and then some...though I suppose I could stick with VHF and use it for digital TVs, yes?)

Question: why the counterpoise?  (Yep, this is Antenna Theory 101, but look at it this way - you get better analog results, too...)

The problem with most amplified antennas is that the driven element usually has less than unity gain, the idea being to keep the thing compact and less obtrusive than a full sized dipole.  The preamp acts as an impedance matching device and does boost the signal -- but also the ambient noise.  If you shut it off, it may no longer pass much RF from the antenna element to the output -- but try it and see.

What you really want is an antenna that can pull more of the desired signal out of the "aether" while rejecting local noise and interference from other stations -- and for best results, it's hard to beat a good yagi mounted as high as possible.  Just raising the antenna from 3 feet to 30 feet above ground level will usually increase the signal 10 dB. 

The purpose of the counterpoise is to give the shield of the coax some type of simulated ground reference.  You might also try connecting the shield to a piece of aluminum foil and set the portable radio on that, so that you get some capacitive coupling to the internal "ground".   It may not make a difference, but try it and let me know if it does.