pwstereo

As noted previously, the FM broadcast reception proved too difficult and I've come up with an excellent streaming solution. When I did an elevation plot between my home and Mt Dandenong, I found there was no line of sight due to Mt Baw Baw. My Raspberry Pi and Allo Boss DAC on a solid NBN connection have given me great listening to the high bitrate 3RRR stream, as well as several other high quality (FLAC etc) internet radio streams that specialise in musical genres that I love.

Thanks, I'd seen those documents, I did a lot of research into this 🙂

I've given up on the FM reception idea for high quality listening, it's just too far with the relatively low power of the 3RRR transmitter. It seems I'd have to be having multiple large Yagi-Uda antennas and mast-head amps and so on. So, I killed two birds with one stone and got a Raspberry Pi 3B+, and an Allo Boss V1.2 DAC. Installed in a nice black acrylic case. On that I've installed Volumio and have added some great internet radio streams, including the high bit rate 3RRR stream. I'll also be able to play my collection of FLAC music, hence the two birds. So far I'm happy.

Last night I tried streaming 3RRR, using their high bitrate option, it cut out a few times, then I repeatedly got server errors instead of the player in my browser window. So I'm thinking their streaming isn't too reliable. I had previously used the high bitrate stream a few times and it was OK.

So you didn't hear any more or get one? I've been looking at the commercial amps like Kingray, but none seems specially made for the FM broadcast band. Many of the TV ones seem to actually have blocking filters for the FM band, although a couple of models had a jumper you could move to pass and amplify the FM band.

Some further experiments were conducted today. I found a 30 foot telescopic mast, so I mounted the antenna at the top and extended the top section (so I had a 20 foot mast). I walked it up against the back porch and secured it temporarily (nice windless day) to the porch railing. The antenna was now well clear of any part of the house and I was able to rotate it easily from the back porch. On the Rotel tuner I had 1 out of 5 signal strength LEDs lit for 3RRR, and a listenable but noisy mono signal, it wasn't enough to open the muting or get stereo. I tried other Melbourne FM stations and with the exception of 3JJJ they were all similar in strength and sound quality to 3RRR, (3JJJ on the Melbourne frequency would show 3 LEDs and was much stronger than any other station). So, I'm a bit more hopeful that with a masthead preamp and the 30 foot mast properly erected I might get listenable 3RRR.

Yes, it is a challenge 🙂 I built the 6 element Yagi, it has a folded dipole as the driven element, so a 300 Ohm feedpoint impedance, that is connected to the RG6 coax by a balun, so impedance and balanced to unbalanced is taken care of. I propped it up on my back porch on a bargeboard mount (just sitting on the concrete and resting in the corner of the handrailing), so the antenna was about 2 metres above the concrete and it was very close to metal window and door frames on one side. Connected to the Denon receiver I had very noisy results, but could understand talking and music easily enough. Tried it on the Rotel and it was slightly better. I'm going to need a bigger mast, and to get it clear of the house. Back in the days of VHF TV, people here used 30 and 50 foot masts with phased array antennas to receive Melbourne TV from Mt Dandenong, but the transmitter power of those was way more than a community FM station like RRR or PBS. I'm still hopeful, but I know it will be a challenge. I did make an enquiry about a masthead amp that someone on these forums was making and tuning to particular bands, but have not heard any news about how succesful they were in practice.

The Rotel tuner I have is the RT-850A and it seems to have very good sensitivity, it's from 1990 I think. RRR and PBS are very good, I've learnt of a lot of new music from listening over the years.

Thanks Ian, I'd visited that site and checked the info there. The 6 element Yagi-Uda antenna I'm building should give me around 10 db gain. From what I can see, the FM tuner in my Denon AV receiver has fairly good sensitivity, I do also have a Rotel tuner that I could try.

Yes, I can stream it, but I’d rather get it as an fm transmission if I can.

Any updates on this? Customer reviews and results from using the amplifiers? I've recently moved from Melbourne to East Gippsland and would like to be able to receive 3RRR and 3PBS fm stations with quality results. I believe that I will get 3RRR with a 6 element Yagi-Uda antenna I plan to build, but if this masthead amp is likely to improve the results, I'm interested.

Item: Receiving 3RRR fm station in East Gippsland Location: East Gippsland Price: Item Condition: Reason for selling: Payment Method: Pickup - Cash, Paypal, COD Only Extra Info: Why is a new post in this forum formatted as a For Sale ad? I love my aussie, indie, and alternate music, I love 3RRR (and 3PBS to a lesser extent), and have recently moved from Melbourne to East Gippsland. I made a loop antenna tuned to 102.7 MHz and can get a barely discernable output from my Denon AV receiver with it indoors. Outdoors I can tell what song is playing with the loop held up high on my back (West facing) porch. The loop is not weatherproof, it was just quickly built as a test. I'm preparing to build a 6 element Yagi-Uda antenna tuned to 102.7 MHz for erection on the same bargeboard mount as my UHF TV antenna. Before I do that, I'm wondering if anyone else in the Bairnsdale area has had any success in getting a quality output from the lower powered Melbourne FM stations? If so, what antenna arrangements were used? Thanks. Pictures:

Long time music fan, been doing hifi since teen years. Built speakers, amps, etc. Been doing AV for about ten years, using my AV setup in stereo for music these days.