While trying to hook up an el-cheapo home theatre sound system, I ran into something new[to me].
Just had never seen anything like it. An unknown connector for the FM antenna. It looks a little like a common RCA plug-but it is not. WTF!?!
It appears the FM antenna socket is a male “PAL” connector.. O’course, not having even the slightest idea what it was, a strong urge developed as I considered ripping apart the brand-new box and replacing the “funky unknown” connector with either an F, BNC, or RCA connector.
Not so fast soldering-iron-breath!
Sanity soon returned, and a few minutes spent on yahoo searching the information gold mine of the internet turned up a name, i.e., the PAL connector as well as several vendors eager to part with them for a few green-stamps. So, put away the screwdriver and soldering iron for now. Cha-ching. Connector in the mail.
Anyway, its always a jolt when you run across something “new” that has been in such widespread use. I suppose Europeans would have seen these more commonly than here in North America, but I’m still a bit surprised it took me 50 years to run across one personally.
The whole thing is only noteworthy because the FM antenna provided is a single wire cut the length of a quarter wave somewhere in the FM band. It works for strong local stations, but is basically a crappy enough antenna I’d like to replace it. Probably put a loop or folded dipole in the attic, since the house has a 300 ohm twinlead run already handily prewired, dating the abode as being from the pre CATV days. May as well use it.
The options right now for attic antenna include a folded dipole turnstile, a single loop, a pair of loops offset 90 degrees, or possibly a kludge of those choices. Maybe an MP3 player in random mode would be a better choice - local FM leaves much to be desired for personal tastes. But that would leave one less antenna project to toy with, and the antenna project is the ulterior motive.
PAL connector, eh? Sounds friendly enough. Of course that’s what the French thought when Germany said they were just on a weekend jaunt and got lost in Bavaria and accidentally ended up on the outskirts of Paris. The Europeans would have to have a different RF connector. It’s just like the French who have a different word for EVERYTHING.
As a true ham, a simple folded dipole simply won’t do for an FM antenna. I suggest you start planning for a four-bay array of long boom LPDAs. Gain and bandwidth, the two great Grails of all worshipers of things that radiate.