I just picked up a very clean NAT 03 - love it! I have had many solid tuners, including a restored Yamaha T-2, Pioneer TX8500ii, Sansui TU717…this is more engaging, musical…am I surprised? The reception is actually better than expected…lots of online comments scared me, but this is doing ok in a challenging location in hilly Seattle. The T-2 is better on pulling in the stations, but this sounds better, and really pulls in certain ones close and tight.
I’m not up for the full Ron Smith Galaxie treatment… may ping the brain trust from a smaller outdoor yagi. Currently using the Magnum Dynalab ST-2.
I have had this Yagi fitted within the last nine months for my NAT05.
Yagis appear to be fairly popular here in the UK. Someone on the forum will be able to advise on how suitable one might be in the hilly terrain of Seattle. Mine is in line of sight of a decent transmitter. I’m hoping you can have the same.
It is a lovely tuner, I have a Nova and really bad internet. I had retired my NAT 03 for twenty years )at the same time my CD3) both have been brought out of retirement after a twenty year hiatus, and both sound great.
Problem with hilly areas, & more so in cities when looking at the transmitter locations in Seattle, what transmitter do you point a yagi at? they are spread all over.
H or V or mixed polarisation aside it may be the best local solution is the non-directional vertically polarised Dynalab ST-2.
As always, worth a phone call to a local aerial installer.
For sure, Seattle has transmitters all over the place. We live on the backside of a ridge, away from some of those, which makes those stations challenging, but we are line of sight to others. Having a rotator just seems like too much hassle, plus our neighbors look at our roof and I don’t want to burden them with too much visual clutter.
I’ve wondered if one of these might be better than the ST-2: winegard fm-high-definition-antenna
There aren’t local aerial installers here anymore.
I have started a one person campaign to get KEXP to bring back their uncompressed signal!
Shame about no installers around anymore.
It’s slowly going that way in UK, internet TV services have killed off satellite, but terrestrial TV & radio, although a declining market, has left the better installers still around.
I doubt that the Winegard aerial will be better than the Dynalab, both are omnidirectional & have no gain as such.
However the Winegard will work better on horizontally polarised transmitters, the Dynalab on the other hand will be better on vertically polarised, both will work eq well on a mixed polarisation transmitter.
Web info such as Wikipedia might show what each transmitter is pushing out.
I just spent a part of a pleasant pre Thanksgiving morning looking at transmitter locations, and suddenly things became clear. All the stations we have trouble with are transmitted from towers in the Cascade foothills (Tiger Mountain). We are halfway down on the west side of Phinney Ridge, a 400’ high north/south lateral moraine.
KEXP, a terrific music station, transmits line of sight to us from a tower on Queen Anne Hill. I’m gonna redouble my uncompressed transmission campaign! (Highly recommended streaming, I know a lot of folks listen to it internationally).
KNKX, jazz and news, has their primary transmitter on Tiger Mountain. They have a small secondary transmitter south, across the Puget Sound, which we pick up, but it is only 18,000 watts and a ways a way.
KUOW, public radio news, have a huge 100,000 transmitter on Capitol Hill - not line of sight, but I think it just blasts out so strongly it is always a good signal.
KZOK, classic rock, Tiger Mountain, bad.
KING, classical, Tiger Mountain, bad.
I think I probably just stay the course with the ST-2. I might just bite the bullet and recognize streaming is smart here for the tough stations.
Still can’t believe how listenable this NAT3 is! My wife and I just enjoyed listening to it last night by the fire.
Excellent tuner, punches well above it’s modest place in the Naim product line, I thoroughly enjoyed mine.
If you can find a Galaxy G-17 I can recommend it, but they are massive. You need to allow for a 6 foot by 6 foot plan space to accommodate one and, the hoop element is about 18" high if I remember correctly.
You can also orientate the ST-2 to horizonal polarisation if one of your stations is transmitting horizontal only.
Maybe worth trying as an experiment, just lay it flat & broadside on to the transmitter location…
I had to position my ST-2 horizontally when I moved about 50 miles from my preferred transmitting station last year. This way I get a strong 9/10 signal with no multipath instead of a very bad signal when the antenna is set vertically.
I had no idea there was horizontally and vertically polarised transmitters!
Yes, FM has both H, V and also mixed.
H was the original FM plan, hence why all home yagi’s are H.
Auto (cars & trucks) wanted FM & in those days car aerials were vertical whips, so that started V & then a move to mixed (simultaneous combined H & V)
Finally in UK ( as I know UK ) and other area’s, the main transmitters & some area infill masts are mixed, other more local station masts are V.
With UHF TV, the main transmitters are H, the local infills are V, but no mixed with TV.
DAB is all V
ST-2 vertical in the attic here, doing a decent job with the stations I care about. Will move it outdoors one day.
Hawthorne have their ST-2 mounted vertically in their main listening room, and it isn’t bad, as I recall. Long time since I heard a tuner there. I think my attic has some advantage over that.
Now I’m thinking I may send this back to Naim NA for a recap. It’s 27 years old. Seems like that would be beneficial? I wonder if it will improve reception as well as sound.
BTW, I’ve had really good luck with Naim North America’s servicing - just got my 32.5 back - pricing is reasonable, and it sounds great.
Does anyone know why they went from half box to full width? I guess as I write that, they did a universal shift to full width in the early 90s, so maybe I answered my own question.
Why didn’t Naim source a control knob without an etched line in it. That 02 tuner would look so much smarter if it din’t have the wholly redundant line on the rotary tuning knob.
