Here’s another AM stereo tuner for anyone who’s interested
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Different engineers, different settings. Well done to Eagle for a change. Now could they please eliminate the mush on 0.8 spacings that occupy much of the band in Goulburn.
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I think that would be difficult to do with the transmitters being so close to town and one of them being a 40,000 watt blowtorch.
Hi Guys
Just wanted to add a bit of important info for those looking for an AM stereo receiver. Forget the HD radios, even though some can decode AM stereo, they only tune in 10khz steps, so they cannot precisely tune most Australian AM channels & may not decode. Some channels are too far off to receive at all such as 666khz & 954khz.
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This is not a problem in Sydney apart from around Artarmon / Gore Hill, and they are at 150KW so at 40KW in Goulburn it should not be too much of a problem should it??
My car radio does not have too much of a problem when driving past Mt Gray on the Hume as I can normally get all the Canberra fm’s, Sydney but weak, and Snow fm on the Southern side of Mt Gray, and SBS Radio Sydney from the northern side onwards.
another AM stereo tuner found if you’re interested
and another
One difference with Sydney is the stations are generally spaced evenly across the dial at 0.8 so they each cover up the “mush” that you hear in smaller towns that have such unused frequencies.
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I get IMD and mixing garbage across nearly the whole band when in central Goulburn. I don’t have any such trouble in Sydney. The mixing products on 95.1 MHz are atrocious (combination of Eagle and TAB 94.3 ) and can be heard as far as 30 km away (Tallong).
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Cooma has horrid IMD on 98.5 & can easily be received atop Mt Delegate.
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Project for late today - put up one of those small circular omni-directional FM antennas. Wish me luck 
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I use one myself and it works really well for local and dxing at my location. Mine is connected to a masthead amp that amplifies Fm / VHF / UHF.
If it is the Matchaster Omi Fm antenna it is slightly directional. The front of the antenna is the gap where the element bends around and clicks into the plastic. Point this at the transmitter. This captures the most gain for me.
Turning it around so it is facing the opposite direction produces poorer results for me.
Also the Matchmaster Omni Fm has an input / output balun. On mine you can connect the TV antenna to the input to combine the two antennas. I connected the output straight to the masthead amp and combined it this way to get the extra gain.
I hope this helps you with the setup.
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I’m surprised you don’t get a lot of overload using a matchmaster amp. These are generally broadband & amplify everything else that’s in the VHF/UHF spectrum, not just FM.
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My masthead amp has 30db gain and has seperate gain controls for VHF / UHF and FM, and combines three antennas. VHF band 3 for Sydney, UHF for Wollongong and the FM antenna.
I get no overload with my setup, fm and VHF is amplified by approx 15db and Wollongong UHF 25db.
I am 35km NW of Artarmon / Gore Hill and get all Sydney / Wollongong / Central Coast stations at local strength. It works really well.
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Yes - that is the antenna. Thanks for the tip; I would have guessed the the opposite to what your suggesting! At this stage I am going to try for a separate feed with a separate amp in the 22-26 dB range as that is what I have lying around! Any thoughts on the higher power amp?
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I guess it all depends on what you are trying to receive and if you are close to high powered fm transmitters. Give it a try go 50% gain and reduce it or increase it to what works best. I did mine by trial and error.
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Some good ducting about tonight!
Wollongong very strong, with Pulse and Power receivable in nulls of the Central Coast stations, and even a bit of 2VOX in a null of the local Hit106.9. Though the last one was not very listenable.
Also good signals from the north, with Triple J from Taree giving Coast FM a bit of grief.
And good Sydney community radio signals too, including 2WOW 100.7, which can be an elusive catch, and I probably heard Alive90.5 for one of the last times (with 2HD bound to switch on their newly approved Belmont North TX in the not too distant future).
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Meanwhile, down in Campbelltown (where I just watched NBN News Newcastle), I’m getting fairly good signals of the Canberra FM stations, including Hit 104.7 & Mix 106.3. Interestingly, the Newcastle & Middle Brother FM signals doesn’t come in stronger than it normally would in this condition, although 97.5 2HD comes in loud & clear.
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As per usual whenever Newcastle FM reception comes in, JJJ/Classic FM are the easiest stations to receive in this location followed by KOFM (at least I can say I received it in Sydney at least once more before the Triple M rebrand) and Hit 106.9.
Nothing from New FM when I checked, infact reception of Central Coast & Illawarra FM station might be stronger here than Newcastle FM stations tonight.
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