The selection and installation of an appropriate FM antenna is important to be able to receive high quality FM broadcasts. You need to select an FM antenna that best suits your receiving location. For urban, near-suburban or in other situations where an outdoor antenna installation is not possible or desirable, a high-quality indoor FM antenna should provide excellent reception.
Actually even a common outdoor television antenna may provide acceptable results for receiving FM broadcasts but you do get antennas that are specifically designed to receive the FM broadcast band. They do away with distortion completely as they are properly installed FM antenna be they installed indoor or outdoor.
Generally 88 MHz to 108 MHz are most effective for FM reception. The FM broadcast signal is VHF that is Very High Frequency and generally can be received within a distance known as "line of sight" or about 40 miles. Without hills, mountains, or buildings to impede its progress, an FM phenomenon commonly known as "diffraction" causes the FM broadcast signal to conform to the curvature of the earth for a distance of approximately 30 miles beyond normal line of sight.
As a general rule, an outdoor FM receiving antenna that has many elements can be assumed to be highly directional. This would make it more sensitive to FM signals received perpendicular to its active elements than to signals arriving from other angles or even in the opposite direction. Such directionality is desirable in an outdoor FM antenna usually for higher gain and to provide increased signal strength.
