You are exactly right, RG6 is 75 ohm and will work perfectly for your new radio.

It is a good one that you’ll enjoy!

Thanks for the questions, they are thought-provoking.

First, with the HK receiver, if it works ok at other locations, which I question at this point, then you may try it with no antenna or with a small piece of wire, like speaker wire, just pushed into the hole for the antenna to see if you get any signal and the results are the same. If there are transmitters on top of the Sears Tower they could be blanking out your reception. Basically, you are saying that “lesser” receivers pick up what your “better” receiver will not so either the HK is defective or it is very succeptible to the near-field RF on the building. I’m sure there are tuners that work in your setting. If you can open the cabinet of your tuner perhaps you could line the inside with foil (make CERTAIN NOT TO GET THE FOIL NEAR ANY OF THE ELECTRONICS so as not to short anything or to start the Great Chicago Fire of 2009 because you would not want to be a 21st century Mrs O’Leary’s cow) to prevent RF leakage. You could determine if RF was leaking into the case by wrapping it in aluminum or tin foil, thicker the better) and if that helps try to just block certain parts and if that helps you could then tape it inside with the unit unplugged and keeping the foil clear of the components. Just some thoughts. There are radios that work in high rf areas so you may have to make a change and do some additional research on radios for that need and the FM Tuner Group, of which I lurk but rarely participate, is a fantastic resource for such a thing but as with any board, be sure to measure the responses you get to any questions posted.

With the second question, here is what I would do. I would swap the receivers long enough to see if the results are consistent at both locations. If the Naim sounds the same in both locations, then the problem (whatever it is) is with the Naim. If the problem switches to the Nakamichi then you have a problem with your coax or the splitter because we know it isn’t the antenna as it happened on two different ones. You can unplug and switch the two outputs on the splitter to determine if it is the splitter. This way you can determine where the issue lies and either replace the coax run from the switch to the Naim or replace the switch if it is the problem.

With both questions, if you determine the problem lies within the tuner, you either need to replace it, use it somewhere where it works correctly, or ask a tuner/receiver repair person what needs to be done. You may also pose your question on the FM Tuner message board on Yahoo to see if anyone else had the same problem with their tuner(s) like that.

Great question! Thanks for that, so many people don’t get how important the coax part of the reception system is and I appreciate you asking that. Some of this is touched on in the FM Reception Guide.

Generally, if it is manufactured to be used with satellites such as Dish Network or DirecTV it is good. Another indicator is if it is marked quad-shield RG6 then it is usually good stuff and I’m not familiar with “bad” or “imitation” quad-shield mainly because it would EASILY be discovered by anyone that attaches a connector because you can see the shielding on it; point being that if it says quad-shield, it is the best. Name brands are also very good and I’m sure there are plenty of good ones but Belden and Andrew come to mind but there are tons of others and if you looked online or did search for a brand name then I feel you would be fine. Also, if you purchase from a reputable dealer you won’t go wrong. Also, if you are only going 20 feet then any RG6 will do and easily up to 40 or 50 feet probably but I can be an excessive person and as I find quad-shield to not be much of a hit financially I just go with it from the jump. The coax is the opposite of the antenna in a way as the antenna is a signal gain point and the cable is a loss point in the simplest description so as you want as much “gain” or signal entry as possible you want as little loss with the coax (or cable) as possible. With coax a smaller number is better; 2db coax is better than 5db because that is the loss rating. I don’t recommend RG11 or RG11 quad-shield but for very, very long runs (200 feet total) as it is probably overkill but I have used it in the past and it is strong as well. Finally, try to keep the coax run as short as possible. If you could mount your tuner on the pole next to your antenna you would be set!

Again, along those same lines height is the key, so you accept the cable loss and do what you can to lessen it by using larger cable but the higher the FM antenna is mounted, the better it will work with few exceptions (though there are some rare ones).