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Rating: Summary: No improvement on AM Review: I bought this and returned it within 24 hours. I hooked this up to two different radios (Grundig, Boston) and tested it on AM stations that were weak in my area. There was absolutely no difference in reception with or without this attached. My future solution will be buying a house where I can put up a large outdoor loop antenna.
Rating: Summary: Totally Useless! Review: I might as well have thrown my money down the drain instead of wasting it on this piece of trash!! It does absolutely nothing. Bought a good amp/receiver and wanted an antenna with it. Don't try to go cheap as I did, but buy something that works (I'm still looking myself... any advise?)
Rating: Summary: Literally worse than nothing Review: I was hoping to improve reception on a few stations , so I decided to replace the twin lead dipole (passive) antenna that came with my new tuner with the Terk Tower. I have the AM Advantage loop and that works fairly well, so I figured this powered antenna would be a lot better.
Well, bad reasoning. On FM, it doesn't work NEARLY as well as a 32" piece of plain old wire on any of my radio recievers. In some cases, stations that could be tuned reasonably well with *nothing at all* attached to the FM inputs, and no internal antenna, could no longer be received with the Terk Tower attached.
Those that could be tuned with the antenna attached had grotesque distortion. This despite turning the gain adjustment dial in either direction. It was functioning, as at low levels of gain, the station dropped off completely, and definitely changed as you moved it. So it wasn't just broken. I could get barely acceptable reception on a few stations with micro-fine adjustments of the dial. But even at best all stations had all sorts of fuzz and dropouts. You could turn it up enough to swamp the receiver ACG circuit, but the distortion never goes away as you turn it down the point of losing lock completely.
On AM, it doesn't make it worse, but it doesn't help, either. On all the weak stations I have tried, I simply can't tell the difference in the results. Once again, fiddling with the gain control changes it, but at maximum boost, it's pretty much what I was getting with the the teeny little loop antenna that bolts to the back of the tuner. At lower gain settings you just can't hear the station at all.
For all intents and purposes, it just doesn't seem to work, I tried it on 4 different tuners/radios in 4 different places in my house, and in every case it made the FM reception MUCH worse than the stock antennas, and AM reception no better than the stock or internal antennas. I'm probably going to break it open and try attaching different lengths of wire in place of the stock antenna, and see if that helps. But I get the impression that the booster amplifer just isn't up to the task of passing 107.7 MHz., and introduces too much distortion at FM freqencies. It almost has to be - because a plain old wire that length is MUCH better.
Even though it was pretty inexpensive, I was very disappointed with this antenna. You'll get FAR better reception with a bent coat hanger. And that's free with your dry cleaning.
Rating: Summary: Good for ring tossing Review: The only thing the Terk boosted was my credit card balance. It's really great if you plan to use it for a good game of ring toss or as a hat holder but as an electronic device, it's a joke
Rating: Summary: Better for FM than AM Review: This is a good, reasonably priced antenna for pulling in weak or distant FM stations. I have one at home and one at work, both attached to Proton RS-330 radios. The Terk AM Advantage is better for AM stations, but the tower is OK if that's the only antenna you buy.Roz
Rating: Summary: Better for FM than AM Review: This is a good, reasonably priced antenna for pulling in weak or distant FM stations. I have one at home and one at work, both attached to Proton RS-330 radios. The Terk AM Advantage is better for AM stations, but the tower is OK if that's the only antenna you buy. Roz
Rating: Summary: Good FM and AM Reception Review: [] This powered antenna helps boosts reception of AM/FM radio stations. Installation was a snap, and Terk includes all the accessories you need to connect the antenna to your tuner. The gain control is on the antenna itself, and is useful for improving the clarity of some stations. I recommend this antenna for those who would like an inexpensive way of improving their radio reception.
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