Is there such a thing at Digital TV antenna?

[Nigel Goodwin]

Years ago when Win7 came out, I cranked up Windows Media Center (WMC), got two Hauppage tuners (later a single unit with two tuners in one package - $73USD) and a decent antenna: like this one - $32USD...
View attachment 113841

Actually that's a pretty crappy aerial, not a 'decent' one at all - more a toy than a proper aerial, and will have VERY low gain. As long as you're in a seriously strong signal area it will be fine, but it's about on a level with set-top aerials.

 

[MrAl]

Hi,

Yeah a digital TV antenna, it can only receive one's and zero's (har har).

I had a decent TV antenna years back around 1980-ish that i got from Radio Shack. It had lots of elements. I did not install it on the roof though i stuck it in the attic and got pretty good reception of most of the regular channels.

Did we see a 'quantum' TV antenna yet? They like using that word too sometimes now.

 

[nsaspook]

Hi,

Yeah a digital TV antenna, it can only receive one's and zero's (har har).

I had a decent TV antenna years back around 1980-ish that i got from Radio Shack. It had lots of elements. I did not install it on the roof though i stuck it in the attic and got pretty good reception of most of the regular channels.

Did we see a 'quantum' TV antenna yet? They like using that word too sometimes now.

I still use my classic RS antenna for Digital TV. We have a mixture of VHF and UHF stations so a paper clip won't work.
http://www.hdtvprimer.com/antennas/vu-190xr.html

 

[cowboybob]

Actually that's a pretty crappy aerial, not a 'decent' one at all - more a toy than a proper aerial, and will have VERY low gain. As long as you're in a seriously strong signal area it will be fine, but it's about on a level with set-top aerials.

That's rather harsh, Nigel. It works very well for my purposes.

As you say:

... As long as you're in a seriously strong signal area it will be fine...

We're "line-of-sight" with the tower.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

That's rather harsh, Nigel. It works very well for my purposes.

I spent 46+ years in the TV trade, including fitting aerials occasionally - we wouldn't sell anything that naff, and would have laughed if we'd seen one.

Sorry if you thought I was harsh, but calling it 'decent' offended me

 

[cowboybob]

... Sorry if you thought I was harsh, but calling it 'decent' offended me

Apology accepted, Nigel . (I'm marking that one down in my "Notable Mod Posts" file...) .

And I apologize for offending you as well!

 

[gary350]

This is my antenna. After I made reflector screen larger signal strength increased. After I changed wire bow ties to solid aluminum signal doubled. At 40 miles it is over kill now matter how bad weather is signal never fades out. It gets good crystal clean signal at 65 miles. I only have the antenna 8 ft high at the new house we are 40 miles from all 44 stations. I had a TV antenna for both TVs at the old house. I never watch TV any more but wife does. My first antenna was built from a $2 yard sale clothes rack that I cut up to build the frame. My second antenna was wood even in years of rain it still worked good I guess wet wood is still not a good conductor to short out the wire connections. I decided since the antenna is receiving very small signals low wire resistance will be better so I changed antenna connecting wires to #12 solid copper signal strength meter show signal increased. Spacing of reflector screen and bow ties changes the performance of the antenna. This antenna even picks up channel 5 which is real channel 5. When the 2 balums are connects need to make sure they are in phase with each other. If reflector screen has smaller holes high frequency channels have stronger signal. Cross overs wires need to be 1" apart.

**broken link removed**

**broken link removed**

**broken link removed**

**broken link removed**

**broken link removed**

**broken link removed**

**broken link removed**

 

[JimB]

a decent antenna: like this one - $32USD...

Actually that's a pretty crappy aerial, not a 'decent' one at all - more a toy than a proper aerial, and will have VERY low gain.

Well, I guess it all depends on how you define "decent".

Looking at CBBs picture, there appears to be a long folded dipole in the plane of the (parabolic) reflector.
This dipole appears to be intended for VHF.

There are three "bow tie" elements of different sizes for UHF , how they are connected is not clear (to me), my best guess is that they are all connected in parallel with the VHF folded dipole.
The differing sizes of the UHF elements implies that this antenna is intended to be a wide band, low gain, one size fits all type of thing.

The reflector, for all its elements, is unlikely to have any effect at VHF, and a small effect at UHF.

We're "line-of-sight" with the tower.

Well, there you go!
Likely a good signal strength area, a low gain antenna is fit for purpose. End of problem.

I spent 46+ years in the TV trade, including fitting aerials occasionally

In Derbyshire no doubt.
For those unfamiliar with the geography of England, Derbyshire is all hills and valleys, most people live in the valleys where line of site is at best not very far. So you end up with two problems, a weak signal and numerous reflections off the various hills.
The antenna of choice for such situations is a long Yagi having 20 or more elements. Lots of gain to boost the wanted signal and a narrow beamwidth to attenuate the reflected signals.

JimB

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

This is my antenna. After I made reflector screen larger signal strength increased. After I changed wire bow ties to solid aluminum signal doubled. At 40 miles it is over kill now matter how bad weather is signal never fades out. It gets good crystal clean signal at 65 miles. I only have the antenna 8 ft high at the new house we are 40 miles from all 44 stations.

These are called 'short backfire arrays', and used to be quite useful - they are low gain, wideband, but have excellent anti-ghosting performance. However the advent of digital TV has rather 'killed them off' as there's no need for anti-ghosting any more

We used to fit quite a lot of them, in specific areas where ghosting was an issue - they were also remarkably resilient, and most we fitted are probably still in use. Luckily the manufacturer chose NOT to deliberately fit rusting steel parts to make them fall down in a few years The same can't be said of various other large aerial manufacturers!.

 

[gophert]

Now you just have to figure out how to fast forward through commercials on live TV and you'll have the perfect system.

Linux Mythtv has auto commercial skip for at least 10 years.

https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Mythcommflag

You must have been bending over when that joke went over your head.

 

[nsaspook]

You must have been bending over when that joke went over your head.

Look, he made a funny! Woot, Woot.

It's effectually live TV with commercial skip delayed by only the commercial skip time (I usually allocate a 15 min viewing delay) to remove commercials as the program is being recorded by the Mythcommflag real-time process.

 

[gophert]

Look, he made a funny! Woot, Woot.

It's effectually live TV with commercial skip delayed by only the commercial skip time (I usually allocate a 15 min viewing delay) to remove commercials as the program is being recorded by the Mythcommflag real-time process.

Yes, that technology is well known.

 

[gary350]

Look, he made a funny! Woot, Woot.

It's effectually live TV with commercial skip delayed by only the commercial skip time (I usually allocate a 15 min viewing delay) to remove commercials as the program is being recorded by the Mythcommflag real-time process.

Back in the day of VHS video recorders I had 1 on recording all evening & night. We watched the video from the day before on the other VCR so we could fast forward all the advertisements. LOL. Most 2 hr movies were 50 to 65 minutes long. There were good movies late at night we were not retired yet and could not stay up all night to watch a movie so we watched it the next day of the VCR.

I think how good or crappy an antenna is has to do with your local stations, power, frequency, distance, hills, mountains, trees, several things. I use to take my antenna with me when we traveled to see how well it worked at the campground. We seldom watched TV on vacation but I wanted to see what I could receive with my antenna. Best reception i ever got was in Phoenix AZ all the TV transmitters are on south mountain elevation about 3000 ft. We camped at lake pleasant that is about 90 miles from the transmitters and all 88 channels came in crystal clear. Other camp ground with hills, trees, 21 miles away 1/2 the stations were received same antenna & TV. Other campground 40 miles from transmitters lots of trees & hills most stations were good. Another thing I learned is some manufactures put worthless preamps in their TV. Most new TVs now have crappy preamps manufacture figures everyone has cable why put a good preamp in the TV. I have often wondered if cable companies pay off TV manufactures to put crappy preamps in TVs so people can not watch OTA TV. About 8 years ago I picked up about 20 free TVs on Craigslist 1 out of 3 would not work in antenna TV.

 

[unclejed613]

yeah, a "digital" antenna is kind of a misleading term. a few years back there was a TV ad for "HD" sunglasses. what was the gimmick? the lenses had a 16:9 aspect ratio..... my grandfather was a FDA chemist, and when "organic" food hit the market, his comment was "strychnine is organic too, and it's definitely not safe to eat".

 

[MrAl]

Hi,

Some of the antennae being shown here are pretty cool.

I built a home made CB antenna long long time ago when CB was popular. It was made out of 1/2 inch copper tubing and fiberglass. It stood 20 feet high and that stood on a roof about 25 feet high. Vertically polarized. I got out to several towns over with that when with the small car antenna (adopted for indoors) i only got around town.

 

[unclejed613]

the $32 antenna has a folded dipole for VHF, and a 3-element yagi (actually 4 if you count the reflector)for UHF. i think that VHF element is too close to the reflector, and there's probably little or no gain on VHF.

The shops back then who sold color TV sets, would tell their salesman to pitch overpriced color TV antennas.

A decade earlier, it was FM stereo antennas.

yeah, i remember that marketing hype, as if there was some "magic" in the antenna design that made the chroma subcarrier, or the stereo subcarrier stand out more in the received signal. the only "magic" was gain, since marginal signal levels usually ended up with a monochrome picture, or mono audio on FM, but that was a characteristic of the signal format, not anything "magic" in the antenna.

the purpose of the "bowtie" elements is to widen the bandwidth of the antenna elements, because larger diameter elements have a wider SWR bandwidth than do narrow ones. that's why a discone or biconical antenna is often used for VHF and UHF communication systems. a variation of this that has a VERY wide SWR bandwidth is the planar disc antenna, where the bandwidth of the antenna can be measured in octaves or decades. the lowest frequency is determined by the overall length of the antenna (twice the diameter of the discs), and the highest frequency by the spacing of the edges of the discs at the feedpoint. i am currently keeping my eyes open for 20 inch pizza pans to build an antenna for use with an SDR radio. i want to include the 2 meter ham band, which is why i'm looking for 20 inch pans. there's plenty of 16 inch pizza pans, but in most stores, that's the largest they have.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

yeah, i remember that marketing hype, as if there was some "magic" in the antenna design that made the chroma subcarrier, .

Don't forget, you'd need an NTSC aerial, not a PAL one!

 

[schmitt trigger]

Or even worse: if you use a SECAM one, the audio is in French!

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Or even worse: if you use a SECAM one, the audio is in French!

Have a point for that - I slipped up!

 

[audioguru]

I have one large digital TV that picks signals from cable TV. The signals are very clear HD using 1080P. HD (high definition) costs the same as SD 480I (standard old definition) on cable TV.
I use an old CRT TV showing SD in my computer room. Recently I tried a digital receiver and antenna connected to my HD computer monitor and got a few local stations. The hundreds of cable TV stations were missing so I don't use it anymore.