Combine FM antenna and cable

McRagefit

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Aug 4, 2011
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Hi all,

I recently bought the 6003 combo from Marantz (with tuner).

I have cable, which provides good quality sound. However, some local broadcasts I like listening to are not on the cable distribution. In that case I can use the antenna, but then I have a serious quality drop and loose some of the national broadcasts in turn. So actually, I'd like to have both...

Is it possible to combine both by using a splitter? Or would this result in too much interference? Is there another solution?

Thanks in advance!
 

McRagefit

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Andrew Everard said:
Simplest solution is surely to just connect your cable box audio output into the Marantz amp?

For clarity: I have something like this against the wall:

screened-tv-fm-satellite-outlet-plate-55-p.jpg
 

daveh75

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Just for clarity, are you taking an FM feed direct from the the cable 'isolator' (really just a catv/fm diaplexer with surge protection) and not using the radio stations available from the Virgin box itself, and want to connect/combine that fm feed and also a feed from an FM aerial into your Marantz?
 

McRagefit

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daveh75 said:
Just for clarity, are you taking an FM feed direct from the the cable 'isolator' (really just a catv/fm diaplexer with surge protection) and not using the radio stations available from the Virgin box itself, and want to connect/combine that fm feed and also a feed from an FM aerial into your Marantz?

Yes, that pretty much sums up what I'm doing :)
 

daveh75

Well-known member
Ideally you'd need an FM/FM combiner (though not sure that they're available anymore). Not sure how effective using a splitter would be since it's designed to split signals not combine them, but splitters are cheap so worth a try.

You shouldn't have problems with interference, since cable rebroadcast the radio stations on different frequencies to the local terrestrial ones to prevent interference.

Bare in mind splitters have around a 3dB insertion loss (more if it's one of the cheap/nasty white plastic 'Y' splitters) which is equivalent to cutting the signal in half, that won't really be a problem with the cable FM feed since it's amplified, but may be with the terrestrial feed if its weak to begin with.
 

McRagefit

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daveh75 said:
Ideally you'd need an FM/FM combiner (though not sure that they're available anymore). Not sure how effective using a splitter would be since it's designed to split signals not combine them, but splitters are cheap so worth a try.

You shouldn't have problems with interference, since cable rebroadcast the radio stations on different frequencies to the local terrestrial ones to prevent interference.

Bare in mind splitters have around a 3dB insertion loss (more if it's one of the cheap/nasty white plastic 'Y' splitters) which is equivalent to cutting the signal in half, that won't really be a problem with the cable FM feed since it's amplified, but may be with the terrestrial feed if its weak to begin with.

Thanks a lot for your reply, I can experiment a bit now!
 

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