If you have a good cheap easy digital over-the-air antenna please comment

I was about to reply in similar vein to OldShooter. No need now, he's said it all. Bigger is better. Good post.
 
RunningBum said:
I like the signal combiner idea. I've been kind of splitting the difference between two locations, I'm going to try to optimize each with a second antenna I already have.
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I recommend the Winegard CC-7870 combiner. That is what I have. Good quality.
 
I wonder if it works like acoustics, where foam on the walls will decrease the volume but reduce the echo, making it clearer. The portion of the antenna that's in the best location may be all you want. I wonder if shielding other parts of the antenna ever helps.
 
OldShooter said:
Quite funny, actually. Antennas do not know what kind of signal they are receiving. FM, NBFM, AM, PSK, RTTY, HD Video, etc. all the same. Those "rods" are actually called antenna "elements" by antenna designers. Yes, the length of elements is related to frequency of the signals they are designed to receive and to their function in the antenna. If you look up "yagi" you will see some sample calculations for reflectors, directors, and driven elements. Bigger is definitely better. Antennas collect energy; properly designed large antennas will collect more energy than properly designed smaller antennas. This is why, for example, that the dishes used for radio astronomy are larger (like 100X or more) than the dishes used for consumer satellite television. It is also why my OCF HF wire antenna is 68 feet long instead of 6 feet long like some hams use for mobile radios. You can also look up "ham radio moonbounce" to see larger, more sensitive, VHF and UHF designs. https://www.google.com/search?q=ham...QGs0KHaW_DowQ_AUoAnoECBgQBA&biw=1600&bih=1030 Any questions?
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Nope, no questions. I was an electrical engineer and was an amateur radio operator years ago. I have some experience building antennas. I stand by what I said in my previous post.
 
foxfirev5 said:
Our lakehouse is over 50 miles from the nearest transmitter. Prior to this year we got 5 local channels. Recently a big house was built which blocked us out. Now it's two Comcast bills a month for us. Blow that dough!
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Have you looked at the economics of putting up an antenna that's high enough to look over the new house versus paying those Comcast bills?

Lots of tripods like this one for sale: https://www.amazon.com/Skywalker-Signature-Heavy-Duty-Tripod/dp/B01MDUK022 I have one of those on my roof with a few (three IIRC) sections of military surplus mast (like these https://www.tmastco.com/main/page_products_mast_sections.html) holding up a 68' ham radio wire antenna. I'm sure a similar setup could handle a small UHF TV antenna. It's pretty easy DIY because the tubing sections are only four feet and aluminum/very light weight.

In a rural area, too, there is undoubtedly someone who specializes in specifying and installing TV towers, both guyed and unguyed (more $$).
 
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My latest creation.
The two are on a A / B switch. The long antenna works for 95% of the channels. The small loop is for UHF, but not for VHF. Together they get all the channels.
 

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All the limitations I read about for the maximum effective size of an antenna were about moving transmitters or receivers, because "the higher the gain, the more compressed the beam width of the signal becomes" so it's easier to move out of range with a larger antenna. But I assume atmospheric conditions create a kind of movement of the signal. Theoretically, I don't believe the bigger the better.
 
Thanks for all the info!

Problem started when one of the PBS stations must have sold their bandwidth or frequency. Their signal is weak now.

Rescans and double rescans would bring mixed results for some other channels. Weather can affect it.

Also - besides that PBS - we must be able to pick up the channel that shows around-the-clock old Westerns for DH! Square thing helped with that.

DH may try to build a couple of antennas for two directions. There are two antennas up there in the attic now that came with the house. More than enough channels. Can't get cable here anyway - so we never had a cord to cut!

This topic gave me a chance to learn the following:
1 plural antennae\ -​ˈte-​nē \ : one of two or four threadlike movable feelers on the head of insects and crustaceans (as lobsters)
2 plural antennas : a metallic device (as a rod or wire) for sending or receiving radio waves.
 
You can build your own high gain DB16 HDTV antenna with copper wire, wood, and screws and other easy to get parts. I did this as an experiment and we were able to receive all 57 broadcast stations in our area. But for some reason my wife did not want this antenna mounted permanently anywhere around our home so we just use Lowcast.
 

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My suggestion would be to go to antennaweb.org and put in your address. If the stations you want are all in the same direction, buy the biggest, honkin' yagi and mount it as high as you can, and point it right at the tower farm you're targeting. If that doesn't get you a consistent signal through the coax down-lead, then put a tuner in the attic and connect the attic tuner via Ethernet. If there is more than one tower farm you need to target, then buy an antenna for each farm and point them accordingly. Put each antenna on it's own attic-based digital tuner (I have had only marginal success with signal combiners, and tuners are pretty cheap [ie HDHomeRun]).
 
What? Nobody has mentioned "dB of gain over isotropic antenna", "directivity", "half-power beamwidth", or "noise figure" of the receiver?

We need numbers for quantitative measures. :)

By the way, physically large antennas to bring in more signals work up to a point. The limit is caused by atmospheric noise, and radiated electrical noise in an urban environment. Strong out-of-band signals that are picked up unintendedly by a large antenna also cause problems with receiver front-end overloading. Hams know about this stuff. :)


PS. I have never been a radio amateur. Just someone who knows a bit about radio communications, and designed a few pieces of RF hardware for pay that went into production. I even got a patent on this stuff, and there's still a lot I don't know.
 
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See. I was picturing a huge antenna that reaches up near a broadcast satellite that's broadcasting something you don't want. That can't be good.
 
Freedom56 said:
You can build your own high gain DB16 HDTV antenna with copper wire, wood, and screws and other easy to get parts. I did this as an experiment and we were able to receive all 57 broadcast stations in our area. But for some reason my wife did not want this antenna mounted permanently anywhere around our home so we just use Lowcast.
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That's a sweet looking antenna.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

A few years ago, I was bragging about a coat hanger type of antenna I built to my brother. Not only the antenna but also built my own stand and mounting using some pipes. The antenna pulled in most of the stations.

I tried to talk him into getting a similar set up since he and his wife was talking about how broke they are and having to go without TV. That's about as far as the conversation got as I think she didn't think the antenna was attractive enough :LOL:. Yet, they may consider the Picasso is a work of art ... :popcorn:.
 
NW-Bound said:
What? Nobody has mentioned "dB of gain over isotropic antenna", "directivity", "half-power beamwidth", or "noise figure" of the receiver?

We need numbers for quantitative measures. :)

By the way, physically large antennas to bring in more signals work up to a point. The limit is caused by atmospheric noise, and radiated electrical noise in an urban environment. Strong out-of-band signals that are picked up unintendedly by a large antenna also cause problems with receiver front-end overloading. Hams know about this stuff. :)


PS. I have never been a radio amateur. Just someone who knows a bit about radio communications, and designed a few pieces of RF hardware for pay that went into production. I even got a patent on this stuff, and there's still a lot I don't know.
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Yup. All true, but as several have shown, wire and tinfoil can get the job done. For OTA television you really just need a decent antenna that can see the transmitting antenna. @sengsational's "biggest, honkin' yagi" may be necessary if the line of sight is partially obstructed by something that absorbs radio waves. For a clear shot, you don't need a fancy antenna. With a transmitter at 1000 - 2000 feet and a receiver near ground level, separated by flat terrain, the earth's curve starts to block the path at about 40-50 miles. There are calculators on the internet that will estimate range over level terrain based on the heights of the two antennas. Terrain in the middle (or @foxfirev5's neighbor house) will shorten the range by a lot, though. Trees, too. We have a directional cell phone antenna on the roof at the lake place, looking through trees. Signal strength from the booster amp goes up when the leaves drop in the fall.

(FWIW, I got my first ham license when I was a freshman in high school, my commercial First Class Radiotelephone license shortly thereafter, worked as a broadcast radio tech and with VHF FM telemetry from HS until I finished my MSEE. Now an active ham again with an Amateur Extra license. Simple HF, VHF, and UHF antennas on the roof.)
 
Ah, things can get complicated about this subject. Lemme tell you my story.

Right after moving into the current home more than 30 years ago, I quickly discovered that TV reception was hopeless, although we are only about 5 miles from the antenna farm on a mountain top, which serves the entire metropolitan area. The problem is that we are in the foothills, and there is no direct line of sight to the broadcast towers. About 5 miles further out in the flat land, there is no problem, as one can plainly see the antennas on the mountain top.

Look at the plot below of the ground profile between the TV antenna farm and my home. There is no direct line of sight. Any signal I get is via knife edge diffraction, and multiple ones at that, with the first diffraction edge where the cursor is (elevation of 2438 ft).

10965-albums220-picture2213.png


The diffracted signal is strong enough to receive, as I am not that far from the antenna. However, the various multipath components caused bad ghosts on the TV screen, and it was not watchable. Realize that the plot shows the ground profile along the straight line between the two points. A 3-D plot would show the tops and valleys where the signal bounced around via multiple paths to get to me.

I tried a Yagi antenna, not to get a stronger signal but to use the directivity to aim for the strongest signal and hope to attenuate the weaker reflected signals. It improved the picture somewhat, but the problem was that the antenna aiming varied with each TV station. I would need to use a motorized TV antenna rotator (do they still sell them?). The antenna aiming would have to be done each time I changed the channel. I broke down and subscribed to cable to avoid all the hassle.

Last year or so, I happened to turn on the TV inside the motorhome when it was parked outside the home. Holy molly! I got some very nice and clear reception. Playing with the built-in motorhome TV antenna a bit, I found that the touchiness of antenna pointing was still there, in order to receive different TV stations. However, with digital reception, if the signal is good enough for the "bits" to get decoded, the picture is superb. There's either a good picture, or none.

I do not watch TV anymore, so have not tried to mount an antenna for the home to experiment further. Maybe one of these days.
 
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Well that's true about digital TV reception being perfect until the signal gets too low and then the signal is gone. With some digital receivers I had when digital first came out because my tv wasn't digital ready, the signal was perfect until about the 34 or 33 signal level and once it got below that the signal went black and I lost the signal.

So in my opinion the trick with digital TV signals is to build up a margin of 5 or 6 in the signal over the signal threshold so even if the signal fades a bit you won't lose the picture. i know that's easier said than done, but that is the goal I would think.

NW bound, I never quite had the problem you described , but I have read in the past about others who did. One thing to try and I don't know if it would work, is to aim the antenna straight up at the top of the highest hill and at the highest point of that hill in the direction of the TV transmitters that you feel is disrupting the TV signal. When I say aim the antenna straight up, that is exactly what I mean and not just towards it. You would be trying to capture the signal before it bounced around like a basketball. It might be a long shot, but it's something to try.
 
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spncity said:
Thanks for all the info!

Problem started when one of the PBS stations must have sold their bandwidth or frequency. Their signal is weak now.

Rescans and double rescans would bring mixed results for some other channels. Weather can affect it.

Also - besides that PBS - we must be able to pick up the channel that shows around-the-clock old Westerns for DH! Square thing helped with that.

DH may try to build a couple of antennas for two directions. There are two antennas up there in the attic now that came with the house. More than enough channels. Can't get cable here anyway - so we never had a cord to cut!

This topic gave me a chance to learn the following:
1 plural antennae\ -​ˈte-​nē \ : one of two or four threadlike movable feelers on the head of insects and crustaceans (as lobsters)
2 plural antennas : a metallic device (as a rod or wire) for sending or receiving radio waves.
Click to expand...
Not just PBS, but perhaps most prominent WGBH

 
I have an old VHF/UHF TV antenna in the storage loft of my garage. It is probably original to my home built in 1987, long before digital TV available. It is not in an ideal location but it works! we are ~30 miles from But it certainly take up a lot of storage. A year or two ago, the local CBS moved from Low VHF to High VHF. Today, they are the only mainstream TV station on VHF in my area. I don't know why they didn't move to UHF:confused: To gain a bit more room, I simply cut off the low VHF elements and main shaft on the antenna.

There is no functional difference in the design or construction of a so-called "digital" antenna. It is still receiving the same RF signal that the old analog stations broadcast years ago.

Correction, sometime in the past, the FCC reduced the number of UHF channels. The highest one was channel 83 and is now 69 (I think). Which may change the design of the UHF section slightly.
 
UnrealizedPotential said:
... NW bound, I never quite had the problem you described , but I have read in the past about others who did. One thing to try and I don't know if it would work, is to aim the antenna straight up at the top of the highest hill and at the highest point of that hill in the direction of the TV transmitters that you feel is disrupting the TV signal. When I say aim the antenna straight up, that is exactly what I mean and not just towards it. You would be trying to capture the signal before it bounced around like a basketball. It might be a long shot, but it's something to try.
Click to expand...


The above tip is very sound, if one looks at the illustration below showing the effect of knife-edge diffraction. The top of the hill is now the source of the signal that blankets the shadow area behind the hill. That's where you point your antenna.

I think my problem is that I don't have one hill, but a jumble of hills, not just in the straight line between me and the antenna but also left and right around that straight line. The signal that I receive is already a mess before it spills over the last hilltop. See the ground profile plot that I posted above.

People in my area subscribe to cable or to satellite TV. Last year, one of the neighbors had an antenna up. I saw that he was up messing with its orientation constantly. He finally stopped. I think he has resigned with whatever channels he could get.


knife_ac.gif


Source: TIA
 
Sunset said:
1001846698.jpg
We are lucky when I bought the house it had the old roof antenna on it.

It works wonders for free Over The Air (OTA) tv, in HD !!
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Hey this is the same antenna I bought at Radio Shack about 25 years ago and put in my attic! That, and a high quality, low noise amplifier and we get almost 100 HD stations (watch about 5 though!) on multiple TVs about 30 miles outside Chicago. Direction is important for this Yagi types. It is helpful as others pointed out to get the transmitting frequencies of your favorite stations and make sure these frequencies are covered in the new antenna.
I installed a highly rated Amazon one for my Mom in Law and it was optimized such that her low frequency VHF (Fox or CBS) was actually missing. Band pass was higher frequency. Great to get real 1080i for free though.
 
I have a 150 mile range antenna from amazon and I get all the major local channels over the air so I do NOT have to pay a monthly fee for cable TV or satellite TV dish. I live about 30 miles from San Francisco and the HD reception is excellent.

I also recently purchased a 82 inch Samsung QN82Q80RAF for about $3200 which upgrade HD signals to 4K. I do recommend getting a new TV if your existing TV is 5 years old. This is because there are big improvements to the video processing of standard definition signals to HD quality and improving HD signals to near 4K quality.

Here is the link to my antenna which cost only about $32.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074CGF6ZN/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

To supplement my free over the air channels, my Samsung QN82Q80RAF includes apps for Youtube and other content like Amazon Prime. I really like my Samsung because the "easy to navigate" menus to change input signals. I simply press the "home button" and there is a menu for over the air TV, Netflix, DVD player, Youtube, etc , etc. You then highlight to the program you want to watch and then press enter. I could not do this simple navigation using my older TV.

My only monthly fee is Netflix for my movies and my Amazon Prime. I had a monthly fee for sport channels but sports have been suspended due to the virus.

For now I mostly watch local news using my over the air antenna, Youtube videos and Amazon Prime via Internet and Netflix.
 
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