FM Reception Tips

WFCR is a 13,000 watt FM station with its transmitter located in Pelham, MA (about 5 & 1/2 miles east of Amherst.) Being an FM station, reception might be sometimes thwarted by various characteristics common to VHF radio signals and the way they travel about space. Mobile listeners might experience flutter, or picket-fencing. Home listeners might hear signal fading or (more likely) a cancellation (multipath) of the signal caused by reflections arriving out of phase with the "direct" signal at the antenna. FM radio signals will bounce off of buildings, poles, mountains and hills (all of which can also block a signal, creating a "shadow"), as well as be absorbed by trees. It's likely that your receiver is actually "seeing" many 88.5 FM signal reflections, however you only hear the strongest of the bunch.

It's a complicated path that the FM radio waves travel before they get to your radio. And these conditions can and will change according to season and over time. Trees grow. Leaves come and go. Buildings go up. Where you place your radio receiver or antenna within a room can make all of the difference, and just because one location worked great for twenty years, that doesn't guarantee it will be ideal next week.

How to best receive WFCR depends on the radio receiver and antenna you have on hand. Here are some general home reception tips.

• Portable radios: fully extend the whip antenna and rotate it about for best reception. If that isn't satisfactory, try moving the radio to a different location in the room. Sometimes moving just a few feet makes a huge difference. Sometimes not. The antenna might work best sometimes in a straight up direction; sometimes more horizontally. One has to experiment.
• Clock or tabletop radios: if the radio has no external antenna, it uses the power cord for one. This is very inefficient (but looks neater) so be sure that the power cord is fully extended. Try moving the cord about in different directions as best as you can.
• Tabletop radio or stereo receiver with "dipole": the dipole is the commonly found "t-type" antenna often packed as an accessory. It works best when fully extended out into a "t" and hung flat on a wall. One should experiment, rotating it about horizontally until the best reception is had, then mounting it as close as possible to this configuration. It is a "directional" antenna, meaning that you can effectively be nulling out the signal if it's incorrectly positioned.
• Amplified antennas: these are those small indoor antennas that have built in amplifiers and boast reception equal to outdoor antennas. Our experience with these leads us to believe they are not nearly as effective as an outside antenna, and usually not even as good as an indoor dipole, but might be an "upgrade" from a "power cord" antenna if your radio has antenna input jacks and you don't have space for a dipole.
• Outdoor antennas: most home stereo systems and many tabletop radios have jacks on the back for a 75 ohm or a 300 ohm antenna. The 300 ohm antenna jack is made to connect to a twin-lead antenna (such as the dipole mentioned above) or 300 ohm twin lead wire from an outside antenna. The 75 ohm connector is almost always for "coaxial" cable used to connect to an outside antenna. Inexpensive transformers are available if you need to connect a 300 ohm antenna jack to a 75 ohm cable, and visa versa. Outdoor antennas are less commonly found than in years past, but there are still several good manufacturers and dealers. We recommend that a professional installer be hired for putting up any outside antenna,as they will be familiar with safety issues (i.e. power lines near the house, grounding, etc.) and the electrical codes. Experience is also handy in determining the most effective way to mount the antenna, as well as running the lead-in cable from the antenna to your receiver. Any outdoor antenna should be mounted high and as far from power lines, trees, or obstacles as possible.

  Buying an outdoor antenna: as mentioned before, outdoor antennas are harder to find, and experienced installers even moreso. But here are a few recommendations for our listening area:


• Stark Electronics, Worcester, (508) 756-7136
• Charlemont TV, Shelburne Falls, (413) 625-6040
• Schilling Television Service, Pittsfield, (413) 443-9235
• Antenna Performance Specialities, Bolton, CT, FAX (860) 643-9748
• Menard's TV Antenna Services, Sturbridge, (508) 347-3100
• New England Antenna Service, CT, NH, ME & MA, 800-339-5507
• Don's TV & Satellite, Worcester, (508) 755-5583
• A-1 Antenna TV Service, Worcester, (508) 756-5758
• Miskinis Television, Turners Falls, (413) 863-2166
• Nickum Telecom Services, Cheshire, (413) 743-8019

AM Reception Tips

If you are having trouble receiving a good signal from 640AM WNNZ we can suggest the following options. However, it is important to remember that the station, which broadcasts at 50,000 watts of power during sunlight hours, is only allowed to broadcast at 1,000 watts from sundown to sunrise. These are rules set forth by the Federal Communications Commission (F.C.C.) and unfortunately there is nothing WFCR can do about that. Therefore, in most of Hampshire County and all of Franklin County there really is nothing you can do to improve reception at night. You can however always stream 640AM at wfcr.org or listen to it through a WiFi radio at home.

At C. Crane you will find a whole line of antennae for improving AM reception. You may be able to find something similar at a Radio Shack. C.Crane also sells the GE Superadio III which offers superior AM performance.

If you have a WiFi network set up in your home, try the WiFi Radio selections available at the NPR Shop.

WiFi radio is the most revolutionary thing to happen in radio this decade. You can pick up over 6,000 radio stations world wide. No crackles, pops, boundaries or fees. WiFi radios can be set up in a few minutes.

Of course you can listen to 640AM WNNZ and WFCR's other program streams right at WFCR.org.