Terk AF-9330 AM/FM Indoor Amplified Tower Antenna Review

I was hoping to improve reception on a few stations , so I decided to replace the twin lead dipole (passive) antenna that came with my new tuner with the Terk Tower. I have the AM Advantage loop and that works fairly well, so I figured this powered antenna would be a lot better.

Well, bad reasoning. On FM, it doesn't work NEARLY as well as a 32" piece of plain old wire on any of my radio recievers.In some cases, stations that could be tuned reasonably well with *nothing at all* attached to the FM inputs, and no internal antenna, could no longer be received with the Terk Tower attached.

Those that could be tuned with the antenna attached had grotesque distortion. This despite turning the gain adjustment dial in either direction. It was functioning, as at low levels of gain, the station dropped off completely, and definitely changed as you moved it. So it wasn't just broken. I could get barely acceptable reception on a few stations with micro-fine adjustments of the dial. But even at best all stations had all sorts of fuzz and dropouts. You could turn it up enough to swamp the receiver ACG circuit, but the distortion never goes away as you turn it down the point of losing lock completely.

On AM, it doesn't make it worse, but it doesn't help, either. On all the weak stations I have tried, I simply can't tell the difference in the results. Once again, fiddling with the gain control changes it, but at maximum boost, it's pretty much what I was getting with the the teeny little loop antenna that bolts to the back of the tuner. At lower gain settings you just can't hear the station at all.

For all intents and purposes, it just doesn't seem to work,I tried it on 4 different tuners/radios in 4 different places in my house, and in every case it made the FM reception MUCH worse than the stock antennas, and AM reception no better than the stock or internal antennas. I'm probably going to break it open and try attaching different lengths of wire in place of the stock antenna, and see if that helps. But I get the impression that the booster amplifer just isn't up to the task of passing 107.7 MHz., and introduces too much distortion at FM freqencies. It almost has to be - because a plain old wire that length is MUCH better.

Even though it was pretty inexpensive, I was very disappointed with this antenna. You'll get FAR better reception with a bent coat hanger. And that's free with your dry cleaning.

(addendum - I finally broke my antenna open, and now it's clear why it doesn't work on AM any better than a stock antenna. It's because inside the tower, for AM, is a small, unamplified, loop antenna! It's not even connected to the circuitry. Which begs the question of why turning the dial affects the AM performance. I speculate that the AM loop and the FM amplifier are interfering with each other - and that the AM is getting into the FM amp, causing modulation at the FM subcarrier frequency, hence, really fuzzy FM reception - and also dragging energy out of the AM loop more or less depending on the FM amp setting. BTW, the FM antenna is a piece of bare copper wire running the length of the antenna. Short answer is still the same - it's junk, don't waste your money)

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Product Description:
One of the world's most popular and recognizable antennas, AM/FM Tower (AF-9330) features a built-in amplifier that can be adjusted to the optimum level to strengthen weaker or distant stations, without over-boosting stronger or closer stations. The high-performance, high value AM/FM Tower is actually two antennas in one - it can function either as an omnidirectional antenna for great reception from all directions, or as a directional antenna to zero in on distant or weak stations.Exclusive Air Coil technology isolates AM and FM antenna elements from each other for increased selectivity with greatly reduced static and noise. AM/FM Tower features a non-skid base, which keeps antenna in place during adjustment.

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