FM radio antennas are not necessarily tuned or optimized for the actual band they operate in. A 1/4 wave whip needs to be ~30 inches long. Many hand-held radios compromise on size for style. A patch antenna at this frequency would be the size of a suitcase.
Dielectric loading could reduce the size of a patch but would narrow the bandwidth. "F" antennas are used to reduce size for frequency bands just above the FM band (Orbcomm and aircraft).
Previous pointers found in this earlier thread may help.
thread247-75816
In addition, many modern FM broadcast band radios have FET front ends. The high input Z and relatively high gain of the FET RF amplifier makes lambda/4 antennas unnecessary and in high RF environments a detriment.
Unfortunately, in todays marketplace, often cheaper is better.
I am probably one of the very few people out there who would spend the extra money for an FM radio/receiver with decent selectivity and sensitivity...That's why the FM tuner in my home stereo is an ancient Sherwood monaural unit (The tuning indicator is a magic eye tube) with a home brew PLL FM MPX decoder and a home brew tunable SCA unit too...
Now that I think about it, the reason I use the old stuff might be because I'm really cheap...
![[ponder]](/data/assets/smilies/ponder.gif "[ponder] [ponder]")