by skyvalleyradio » Fri Mar 20, 2015 12:04 pm
kal -
I'm interested in the antenna mentioned above. A couple of years back I tried a $10 indoor antenna and was surprised to pull in six channels, all with, of course, a gorgeous, uncompressed signal. I see one house in my neighborhood with a double antenna, one aimed south, one to the west. The house is pretty much at the high point on the hill where I live. I thinking that the south aimed panel is to pull in the PBS feed from Anacortes, but I suppose it could be for a Victoria channel.
In all honesty, I really haven't researched this nor do I even own an HD TV, so when I hook up my own high-gain UHF TV antenna, all I get is incompatible garbage. I also haven't paid much attention to the new start-up outdoor antenna manufacturers, so really don't know what's on the market. In the small community I live in, I was approached by a few people wanting to cut off Shaw Cable (only operator here) but still wanted to receive local stations for news & a few other programs. It's encouraging that you got 6 channels with an indoor antenna & might be worth the investment. Have you thought of approaching this neighbour for a friendly chat?? If that's a scary thought, how about putting a 'sticky' on the front door with some contact info & noting your interest in the antenna??
Basically these antennae consist of four or five "butterfly" elements and a wire mesh reflector a few centimetres behind the main elements. I'm not sure how this is all wired up at the antenna. Would the two panels be combined into one splitter hooked up in reverse?
Ah yes...the "bowtie" antenna: The 'butterfly' elements are connected together in parallel by a a pair of thin-wire elements that are probably hard to see without binoculars. This is called the "phasing harness" & it's purpose is to act as a 'combiner' increasing the "gain" required for weaker signals, plus giving the antenna a tight directional lobe. At one end of the phasing harness will be the 2 connection points for a 'matching transformer' to connect to the co-axial cable downfeed to your TV. The antennas I've constructed are "log-periodic" design which uses straight elements, and a phasing harness to connect the 3 "dipoles" together. The antennas I'm constructing probably have better "deep-fringe" reception characteristics (higher "gain") than a "bowtie" . I have a huge "boneyard" of aluminum, antenna scraps, recycled antennas & parts to build a few antennas. However, i'm quickly running out of the specialized material & parts I need to construct dipoles & phasing harnesses. I'm not interested in trying to pursue this as a hobby business due to my increasing problems with severe arthritis affecting my hands, but will continue to build a few of these for some pocket money. Feel free to run any specs on antennas you find & I'll do my best to guide you along. Also for consideration is how you plan to mount this - the higher the better. Also, you will need some quality RG-6 co-axial cable routed into your home. You may wish to 'test-drive' a new outdoor antenna on a temporary wooden pole running the co-ax feed through a window or door BEFORE making major installation decisions
For reception here, the homebrew antennas seem to pull in the 2 Victoria signals, the Vancouver signals on Mt Seymour, KVOS-TV & it's sub-channels; also co-sited KBCB-TV which now has a PBS feed on one of it's sub-channels. It's this addition that has local residents interested in switching to antennas as supplements to online TV viewing. There's no reception here of any Seattle signals, in spite of the fact the old 4,5,7,9,11 & sometimes 13 were receivable with an outdoor antenna. HD signals behave much differently.