FM Dxing equipment?

[Grinch]

Just wanted to get a general idea of what type of receivers and antennas, most are using for FM DX?

[ThaDood]

Well, over +30 years ago, I used both those Radio Shack FM beams and a VU-190 TV / FM, VHF / UHF, beams up +40ft on a mast, with a cheap Channel Master rotor. In a rural area, without a local FM station, I was also able to get away with +10dB and +20dB signal booster amps. And, if I wanted sensitivity and great selectivity, and great IMD rejection, I´d buy used car stereos and put them on 12VDC power supplies. Routinely, I was able to RX stations +120 miles away, like Toronto, Erie, Pittsburgh, Clearfield, Williamsport, Syracuse, Ithaca, Cortland, Binghamton, etc. Then, during Tropo´s, Cleveland, Toledo, Utica / Rome, etc. I also DX´ed analog TV stations then as well. So, if you see your neighbors trash a TV antenna, it might not be too hard to clean-up, fix-up, use RG-59 coax, and some of your friends and co-workers might give you used car stereos, since they usually swap-out the OEM ones for name branded after market ones. The old AC Delco stereos did well, as did the Pioneer Super Tuner series. So, there ya go... You could do FM DX´ing, on the cheap. However, with all of those translators littering the FM band today, I see great selectivity as being a better advantage to great sensitivity. Happy FM DX´ing!!!!! 

[M R I]

Aside from SDR and good antennas. It is very important to be able to have fine tuning and narrow filters. I use a YAMAHA T-85 tuner with 4 filter bandwidths.

[owen81]

Chinese radios based on the TEF6686 Chip are pretty good for FM DX, I think the chip is also used in car radios (which many people swear by fir FMDX) it has RDS which is useful for DXing foreign stations when you don't speak the language. Most of the receivers with this chip available on AliExpress etc have a SMA-F socket for the antenna, so nice and easy to connect a better antenna such as a Yagi etc with some low loss coax.

[fox558]

I had a Pioneer car radio with a supertuner and it was sensitive and selective on FM. Unfortunately I changed my car and to take out the double din factory radio will be complicated and will leave a gaping hole in the dash. I would also loose my LCD display which is controlled by the factory radio if i removed it to fit the Pioneer. It also has SW on it which was surprisingly good on a car roof stub aerial

[RadioLongWire]

Using DEGEN DE1103 when traveling, easy to use, good audio quality and rx selectivity on FM but in HF bands as well with usb and lsb mode and longwire provided for better swling, i highly recommande for the price (<100€) 73 all