OT: What's the best HDTV antenna setup?

[eculbert]

I live 'over the hump' that is the hump between camelback mtn. and papago peak. And I have two dtv converters. I have a 30 dollar regular tv amplified pair of rabbit ears fully unscrewed with just the 'loop' hanging in the front westward facing window. Then a splitter to two tv's. One has about a 50 foot run to here..my bedroom. A few weeks ago, had a short period of breakups about sundown, but otherwise plenty of signals. 

ANY good uhf antenna IS a hdtv antenna. As long as it will receive in the 800mhz band, don't waste your money on 'special hdtv antennas'. This from a general class ham and plenty of discussions have shown up basically stating that on the ham radio lists I belong to. I understand that down the road, there will be a need for SOME stations to revert to vhf, so don't cut or destroy the vhf...longer straight rabbit ears or elements on the antenna just yet. Mine unscrewed and are stored.  

I am less than 1/4 mile west of the Indian Bend Wash so very 'tucked in' behind the hump and cannot see south mountain if you bulldozed off all the buildings or anything in a direct path to the stations on the mountain. But get 'good to solid' and voice and video is great even on the 'converter box' which I am sure and have been told 'isn't nearly as good as the built in tuner is' in a true hdtv tv.

Those $75-200 ripoffs for special hdtv antennas are just that..a ripoff. You could go to radio shack, buy a 'signal booster' and build just as good an antenna for about $5 more than the booster costs. And if your engineering is good enough, probably a better signal amplifier device!! 

I can only get one station w/o the probably weak amplifier include in the $30 rabbit ears antenna I use. I did have to hang it from the curtain rod, but we seldom open that window anyway. 

Just my two cents worth. Don't become a sucker for 'special antennas' as there is NOTHING special about the signal, it is just 800 band uhf that happens to be one of the digital modes. 

IF I am correct instead of Frequency modulated, it is basically either frequency shifted much like teletype or on/off frequency much like cw...haven't checked it out that far, and don't need to.

Some of the OLD freqs are not going to be used, but that doesn't make the ones that will be remaining on uhf and those vhf ones to need a different antenna than the old analog type signals. All an antenna cares about is the frequency, not the mode. So go spend the money if your wallet is fat, the crooks will love it....vacationing in the south pacific at your expense.

Oh, I am having way less problem SINCE I got the dtv boxes than on the old system with the SAME antenna setup!!

You MAY get better signals from a $100 plus 'hdtv' antenna...only because MAYBE it has a better amplifier for the signal..  Not because the elements that make up the antenna are special but because as stated it MIGHT have a better $50 amplifier attached to $3 extra metal housing/marking/packaging/wording/whatever that does nothing for receiving the signal in the antenna part. Nice profit for them!! 

Ed Culbertson, former electronic test tech and general licensed ham.

Ed/ke7feg

Did I mention, 2/23/07 the FCC dropped all cw (AKA Morse code) testing for any class of license as a ham? Just pass the written exams.


--- On Fri, 7/4/08, Josef Lowder <joe at actionline.com> wrote:

> From: Josef Lowder <joe at actionline.com>
> Subject: OT: What's the best HDTV antenna setup?
> To: "Plug" <plug-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
> Date: Friday, July 4, 2008, 11:22 AM
> What do recommend as the best HDTV antenna setup?
> 
> Does signal strength need to be boosted if I put an antenna
> in my attic
> and run a long coax cable to connect it into my house cable
> with 3 devices
> connected?
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