# Boosting FM reception in car? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 10, 2001, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boosting-fm-reception-in-car/86512 "2001-10-10T04:34:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![catdog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@catdog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catdog)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2001, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boosting-fm-reception-in-car/86512/1 "2001-10-10T04:34:41Z")
Hey ya’ll– Where I attend college seems to be right in the middle where there’s no good radio stations. In fact, the FM signal of my favorite station seems to die about 2 miles before I reach town while driving in my car. Is there anything I can do or purchase to be able to effectively improve reception? ---
**Author:** ![Critical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2001, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boosting-fm-reception-in-car/86512/2 "2001-10-10T06:39:08Z")
a longer antena…entena? you can get some really friggin long after market ones ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2001, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boosting-fm-reception-in-car/86512/3 "2001-10-10T06:49:50Z")
You can try buying a better car antenna or making sure it is grounded properly but in that most car antennas are simple dipoles (IIRC there are some more complex types like those that are embedded in the rear glass but I think those need to be factory installed) this is not likely to help that much. A better radio with a superior tuner would probably be your best bet. Radio Shack used to make an inline FM booster for car radios but while this boosts signal it boosts noise as well.