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What is the best way to concoct a makeshift TV. antenna?
[Deleted User]
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Alas I have no wire coat hangers
using some co-axial cable, and a connector, I've plugged into the tv. and at the other end of the cable I've made a loop 5" diameter.
I played around with it, and put it in the best position. 5/10 - good sound, fuzzy picture. help!
NB I'm waiting for my landlord to complete the new aerial on the roof.
The supermarkets are closed, and i'm missing the snooker
Times are hard, so the pub is out of the question, a botch needed
using some co-axial cable, and a connector, I've plugged into the tv. and at the other end of the cable I've made a loop 5" diameter.
I played around with it, and put it in the best position. 5/10 - good sound, fuzzy picture. help!
NB I'm waiting for my landlord to complete the new aerial on the roof.
The supermarkets are closed, and i'm missing the snooker
Times are hard, so the pub is out of the question, a botch needed
0
Comments
Go for one that looks like a plastic covered Yagi or log periodic...
| | | |
| | | |
or
./\_/\_/\
/..\/..\/
with the elements rotatable to horizontal/vertical as required for your transmitter.
See http://www.wolfbane.com/cgi-bin/tvd.exe? for details.
or similar
Well it sounds like you've connected it to the TV, you just need to faff with it to get better reception. My old housemates used to use a fork as a TV aerial, but then again they did live next door to The Wrekin transmitter back home.
Try removing the plastic insulation from the cable as it;s designed to prevent any unwanted (including the wanted in your case) signals in.
Is there any remnants of an aerial on the roof? If so try using that. Or give up and go down the pub and watch it there
Personally I would not bother trying to make one. There are plenty of daft ideas posted on here such as using coathangers and other nonsense. If you have a very strong signal it might work if not it will not.
Basically an aerial needs to have the elements cut to half or quarter of the wavelength. Typically a Yagi will have sevral horisontal elements and a reflector. You need to select the feed point to the arial to match the cable impedence. A mismatch here will give you a high SWR resulting in poor gain. You could try making a horizontal dipole out of wire. The tricky bit will be matching it to the coax as at the cente the impedence will be something like 300R and not the 75R of the coax and the aerial import to your TV.
Rmoving the black insulation ? Why ? It does not carry the signal. It serves to protect the cable and to provide. Removing it may also alter the impdence of the cable.
I remember i made a aerial out of scissors in school when world cup was on and worked pritty good but the hertford relay was next door
Dave
Anyways, the shops are now open so get down to poundland and spend a quid and your sorted until the proper antenna is installed (if it's immienent) or do what I did and get a log periodic from Maplin and wire that up - in the loft if you can, or as i've done on top of the wardrobe.
The insulation does not do that. Its the outer screen that helps protect the feeder cable from noise pickup. Removing the outer sheath will also allow mositure to get into the foam insulation which will not do a lot for the signal.
do you need to remove the sausages first?
No but you have to pre heat it to 250C first to get optimum reception from it.
Coaxial cable is, (even though it doesn't look it), waveguide.
The only difference is that there's a centre conductor in coax but none in waveguide. (WG is used to connect high performance microwave antennae to their transceivers).
So, as has been mentioned, if you don't terminate the coax correctly it wont work correctly. It will not be 'balanced' along its length and will pick up all sorts of signals from anywhere. ie interference from your neighbors' 'crap' electrical equipment.
You must connect, either a proper antenna or open up the coax so that the inner and outer are at right angles to the feed and of the correct length to match the frequency you wish to receive. This simple dipole is not very good for TV as each TV group covers such a wide frequency. It is necessary to fit some kind of antenna which is designed to work over a greater bandwidth.
There is no doubt that using good quality coax (preferably CT100 Sat coax), and a reasonable antenna, will give least problems.
Remember, in fringe areas you will often experience 'ghosting'. This can arise from the same transmission arriving later by a reflected route. Often only one channel in a group is affected. This is 'supposed' not to be such a problem with DTT. Anyway, large, single group antennae are often good for reducing these problems as their acceptance angle is much less.
I live at the bottom of a 'valley', in Blandford in Dorset. I have to get my DTT freeview from the Isle of Wight. It's a long way and the signal is way down below what will normally work. Most near me cannot receive it. I can. Adopt the principle of getting the best signal into the antenna and ONLY then putting an amplifier on to the system as close as possible to the antenna as you can.
Enough for now,
Terry Toye
Because a 5" loop is resonant at which freq?
Yet again someone else has no location.On this occasion I will assume you are in bikini Bottom.
Right go down to Argos and get a standard Digital ariel.Problem is solved.If not then get a powerful booster.Alternatively use a fork and jam it in the ariel hole.That should do something.
Well only partly true. You'll have no bother getting Red Hot TV. But if you want to watch Frost, on ITV, you'll need to turn the gas down.
No wonder my signal keeps dropping... Mine only goes up to 220C