OT: What is the best antenna for getting Phoenix area TV channels?

[Lisa Kachold]

Again MythTV officiados swear by the cheap "bowtie" models.

Whatever you get, you have to keep it away from metal and other wiring
-- at least twice the width of the line. This is because the electromagnetic

field extends into the air around the conductors, whereas with coax it's
contained within the shield.

Also, twinlead is prone to "ingress" problems, signals that exist in the air

will get into the twinlead and cause interference, front-end overload of the

receiver and other problems.

This sort of problem is somewhat reduced by phase cancellation of a signal
which "ingresses" into both sides of the balanced twin lead equally, but
it's
still a problem.  Coax, being shielded, is resistant to the ingress of
outside signals.

Generally twinlead works well in "quiet" electromagnetic areas like rural
areas, but is problematical in urban areas with a lot of RF floating around
the environment.

So, it's safe to say, that the whole antenna installation needs to be
evaluated for signal loss, rather than a simple replacement, where you
probably will
find that the same interference and electromag RF causing grief?

On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 3:12 PM, mike Enriquez <mylinux at cox.net> wrote:

> Try an $8.00 antenna!
> Search the internet and you will find instructions on building an HD
> antenna for $8.00.
> I live in the west valley and gave up cable t.v. about 3 years ago. I
> have rabbit ears made by Phillips which
> cost me about $70.00. I purchase all the parts for my $8.00 antenna but
> I have yet to build it. I have Rabbit ears on my t.v. up
> at Sedona and that works better without the HD converter box?
>
> Here I use the convert box and its ok. But I am looking foward to my
> $8.00 wonder.
> Good luck
> Mike Enriquez
>
>
>
>
> Josef Lowder wrote:
> > What is the best antenna for getting Phoenix area TV channels?
> >
> > I gave up cable years ago (too much money for too little worth
> > watching).  Tried dish and it was no better.  For a long time, we were
> > getting excellent reception from a simple $4.95 top-of-set antenna,
> > even when we got a new Vizio HD TV a year ago.
> >
> > But recently, the signal for some channels ... especially channel 15
> > ... has become unreliable.  Sometimes the signal breaks up and
> > sometimes it goes away entirely.
> >
> > So, I purchased a $50 Philips outdoor antenna and mounted it on a
> > 15-foot tall pole outside. It gets even worse reception than my little
> > old $4.95 indoor top-of-set antenna.  I've tried moving it to several
> > different locations and tried rotating it to every degree of
> > 360-degrees with no success.
> >
> > So what would the collective PLUG intelligence recommend?
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