The standard RB antenna is actually very good. I see aircraft out to 150 miles with the standard antenna in the window ledge of a third floor building. I'm surprised that you were only getting 40 miles before.
I couldn't agree more with you Allocator. Also your point about sticking it on a car roof serves to emphasise the "eccentricity" of aerial reception.
Like most I have experimented with different aerials, different cables and different positions and after a year's effort would offer the following advice:
Signal loss from aerial cable is considerable but there is no loss from USB cables. Replacing 12 metres of antenna cable with a 12 metre USB and moving my box away from the PC but close to the aerial totally transformed my expectations. Do you need to get at the box? If not, then bung it up near the aerial and cut out as much antenna cable as possible.
For indoor & loft use I have found that the supplied antenna is as good as, in fact better than, any of three "specialist" (expensive) antennas I have tried.
Position is clearly everything but it's seems to me to be a black art. For reasons I cannot explain, distances as little as a foot (or less!) seem to make vast - and I mean vast - differences. My supplied aerial is now perched on top of large round metal biscuit tin as high as possible in the loft. One would have thought dead centre would be best? Forget it. It is not placed centrally lengthways, but 3/4 of the length and is also a touch off-centre widthways.
It took a couple of weeks of trial and error to get it exactly right and as a result MyFlights have risen to 90/120 - an astounding figure considering that my virtually sea-level site is amid other houses and all previous efforts suggested 50/60 would be absolute maximum.
My Loft is now locked shut!
Good luck covernotes- it's worth persevering.
