On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:22:58 -0500, wrote:

On Tue, 25 Mar 2008 00:39:03 -0400, mm
wrote:

On Mon, 24 Mar 2008 23:29:55 -0500, wrote:


Does he live in a metal building? You wont get decent fm reception in
metal buildings without an outdoor antenna

Does that include houses with aluminum or vinyl coated steel siding?

YES.
Any building enclosed in any kind of metal will have poor reception
for all radio waves. For example I have an all metal pole barn. My
cordless phone with the base (transmitter) in the house will not work
in the barn, but if I open the barn door and stand in the doorway it
works fine. Metal blocks radio (and tv) signals of all types. The
solution is an outside antenna with a wire feeding into the building.
Unfortunately there's no way to do that on a cordless phone. On the
other hand, a portable radio in the same barn would not get stations,
and it had a single telescoping antenna. I took a 12 foot piece of
#14 house wiring, shoved it out one of the rib holes on the roof, and
connected the other end to my nearby garage wall. Then I put an
alligator clip on the wire and simply clip it to the radio's
telescoping antenna and I get great reception. I never did any
measuring for wavelengths or anything, it's just a matter of getting
the signal inside the building.

I used to repair things for pocket change, and I lived near a college.
I went over to a dorm, in an old apartment building, to pick up a
sewing machine, and the girl complained that her 12" b&w tv got bad
reception. I told her it was the metal frame of the building (steel
girders) and that she should get some lamp cord or other wire and
connect it and throw the end of it out of the window.

I couldn't fix the sewing machine, but when I brought it back a week
later, she had bought a new 12" b&w tv and she was saying how she got
bad reception. I told her it was the metal frame of the building and
that she should get some lamp cord or other wire and connect it and
throw the end of it out of the window. She gave me the old tv, which
worked fine at my apartment.