On 09/21/2013 01:06 AM, John Meissen wrote: > > [email protected] said: >> 5. I built my own DTV antenna for grins: >> http://cdn.makezine.com/make/television/04/DTV_Antenna_FINAL.pdf >> I used scraps: some leftover 18 gauge Cu wire and a piece of cork flooring. >> I get excellent 1080i reception of PDX stations from Vancouver at ground >> level. > > I'm surprised you get such good reception. That's a UHF antenna, and 3 of the > Portland stations are VHF (8, 10 and 12). > > > > _______________________________________________ > PLUG mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug > Ah, that's the beauty of this simple design: it can pull in all PDX DTV channels just fine. Its great that I built this with leftover scrap building material in the garage! A spiffier design is Gray-Hoverman: http://www.digitalhome.ca/ota/superantenna/design.htm
There are several other designs. One is a better fractal design that I plan to try. Here is an example using Al foil on clear plastic: http://www.htpc-diy.com/2012/04/diy-flexible-fractal-window-hdtv.html You can increase the number of elements and the Koch curve iterations: http://makezine.com/2012/01/30/diy-fractal-antenna-for-digital-tv/ "Signal strength" also depends on your DTV tuner. I suspect that some (most?) HDTV manufacturers are skimping figuring that most people just plug into one of the HDMI jacks. Since 99% of DTV is in the UHF, I wouldn't be surprised if some DTV tuners skip proper VHF support. (Note: Anyone that has a high quality roof top VHF/UHF antenna from the old analog days already has a dang good DTV antenna. The only reason I bothered to build one is because the last TV antenna I had was 20+ years ago!) But I digress (rainy Saturday!). Yes, this simple design is plenty good enough in PDX. If you need more frequency response, replace the bow tie elements with Koch fractals. -Ed _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
