Faraday Cube

[Deigh]

My wife and I live in a small flat with corrugated iron roof and aluminium framed windows which makes it a Faradays Cage. We like to listen to FM radio but having major problems with reception. There is no outside window in the room. TV aerial is unsatisfactory for radio and there are too many problems to solve to fit a special radio aerial connection.
Many years ago I heard of a device that would be able to link an aerial to the radio by a transmitted am signal. Does anyone know what I'm referring to? Or has anyone got a better idea? I am 92 years old and limited in what I can do physically.
Deigh

 

[kellys_eye]

There is no device that will do as you want. The only way to achieve it is to feed a cable through the wall (via a gland) to the external antenna.

 

[crutschow]

As stated, you need some type of external antenna to listen to FM.
How far away are the stations you want to listen to?
Do you get good reception if you move the radio outside?
What sort of antenna does the radio have now?

Since you apparently have the internet, you might consider an internet radio, which may pick up the stations you want to listen to.

 

[Deigh]

Thanks, I had a feeling this was the only option, will look at internet radio as you suggest, my TV has internet availability.
Deigh

 

[ivak245]

If you can sneak a few metres of hook-up wire out of the window and just let it hang in the breeze, it will probably be enough to pull in a few local stations.

 

[Deigh]

If you can sneak a few metres of hook-up wire out of the window and just let it hang in the breeze, it will probably be enough to pull in a few local stations.

Thanks for that but there are no outside windows in the room, only windows lead to aluminium atrium.

I do have a length of aerial wire running a devious path behind a wall unit and out through an illegal hole in the door frame to a improvised aerial glued onto an outside window. This wire is squashed by the door itself and is suspect. This has been there seven years and I presumed it had got permanently damaged.

However, the replies telling me that there is no alternative made me seek the reason for the failure of the radio to stay on station and I found two things, one is that the elbow joint plugging into the aerial socket had gradually eased out and was intermittently failing. This was soon fixed.

The second thing was that we, in the middle of spring, are having a burst of cold weather and the demand for electricity (fuelled by the increasing amount of electric cars on charge] meant that the voltage was dropping alarmingly to below 200v at times and this was unacceptable to a twenty year old radio!

Hopefully my woes are now history. Thanks for your reply.

Deigh