I'm just going to throw in a few bits and pieces here...
1)
I agree that, for the most part, FM is dead. But, to be fair, I NEVER liked it very much...both because of the audio quality on most stations and because none of them would consistently play stuff I wanted to hear. And, by my reckoning, the content has gotten far worse. There is a local station I listen to in the car on the way to work. And they even play music I like... but over, and over, and OVER again. (It's obvious they program a playlist, allow it to random repeat for a week or so, then pick a new one.)
2)
I tried SiriusXM radio in the car for a while... and I actually enjoyed the way they presented content... up until I'd heard the entire playlists on all of the four or five channels I enjoyed.
And, to be quite blunt, I found the audio quality to be audibly inferior - SIGNIFICANTLY inferior.
3)
If you're determined to listen to FM and have stations to listen to...
Find an old tuner with really good selectivity... both alternate channel and adjacent channel.
(But note that modern "chip" tuners, like the ones we include in our processors, aren't actually all that bad in terms of reception, and the sound quality is actually very good.)
ADJACENT CHANNEL SELECTIVITY is not often specified, and is going to be far lower than alternate channel, but is more important if you have lots of channels on adjacent channels.
In the US we only assign odd numbered tenths... and in theory avoid assigning adjacent ones local to each other.
So, for example, overall there will be stations on 92.7, 92.9, 93.1, 93.3, 93.5, etc....
But, in a given local area, they should only be on 92.7, 93.1, 93.5, etc. (avoiding having two local stations on adjacent used channels)
(I'm not sure if anybody bothers to enforce this lately.)
4)
Consider a good directional antenna and an antenna rotator AFTER looking at your local geography.
A good directional antenna is just that... directional... and a rotator will allow you to point it at individual stations like a telescope.
This may help a lot if you have lots of distant stations in different directions...
But it won't help at all if all of your good stations come from the same direction - or even the same tower in some local city.
5)
Finally... proper orientation matters... even with a simple "wire T antenna".
A wire T-antenna picks up TO THE SIDES OF THE "T".
You want to stretch out the legs of the wire into an actual "T" shape.
If you stretch the "T" HORIZONTALLY it will pick up FROM THE FLAT SIDES and absolutely REJECT signals from the ends.
If you stretch the legs VERTICALLY, it will pick up from ALL directions, but will overall be somewhat less effective than the other way.
6)
HEIGHT MATTERS.
Even a dinky little antenna, or a wire T, works better the higher you put it.
If you live in a house, in a rural area, even raising the antenna into the attic will usually work far better than NOT putting it in the attic.
And, of course, hills, mountains, and metal block antennas to varying degrees.
(And, likewise, don't put your FM antenna right next to that satellite dish either.)
