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Home made tv antenna?

A friend lives in a somewhat remote area with regard to the tv broadcast signals. The nearest (2 UHF channels to the north) emanate from 40 miles away. All the rest are from around 65 mi. southeast (UHF & VHF). She just had new roof and siding on the house, and hence no rooftop antenna. With the new conversion to digital, she is looking at having to procure an antenna of some sort, since rabbit ears don't pull in one single digital channel. She is reluctant, understandably, to mount an antenna on the new roof, same for something mounted on the brand new siding, so we were trying to avoid that. So anyway, someone sent her this link to instructions for a home-made antenna which is supposed to work well:

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I looked at it with skepticism, but the person who presented the pictoral of how to put it together claimed it worked very well (he didn't say how far he lived from transmitters) -- and of course the thing would be simple to build, and free. If anyone would care to take about one minute to look at this, I would appreciate if you'd care to answer a few questions:

1). Does this thing have a snowball's chance in Hell of working at the range I described?

2). Is this a UHF only antenna (as the spelling of the link suggests)?

3). Is it likely that NO antenna of any kind will work inside an attic

-- or will it likely have to be rooftop no matter what?

4). Would the antenna in the link be directional -- or are they all genreally directional and require a rotator in cases like this? Thank you in advance.
Reply to
James Goforth
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Also depends on the terrain, antenna height, and local foliage (having to pass through heavy trees in the line-of-sight can be A Bad Thing for UHF signals).

Looks like it.

Depends on the roofing and sheathing material; also the weather. As pointed out earlier, fat foil-covered ductwork probably won't represent a positive contribution.

There's generally a trade-off between directionality and gain for a given amount of "stuff" in the antenna. However, instead of a rotor you might be able to mix a N-pointing UHF with a SE-pointing VHF-UHF.

WRT UHF, the DB2-style and Gray-Hoverman antennas are popular among DIYers. There's a discussion of Hoverman at , and 4NEC model files for both the Hoverman and DB2-style over at

The antenna modeling software is provide by Arie Voors and is at

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It will digest the .nec files from the link above.

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Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA
Reply to
Rich Webb

cc&p: A friend lives in a somewhat remote area with regard to the tv broadcast signals. The nearest (2 UHF channels to the north) emanate from 40 miles away. All the rest are from around 65 mi. southeast (UHF & VHF). She just had new roof and siding on the house, and hence no rooftop antenna. ******************************** After reading the links you provided (thanks)attic-mounting an antenna sounds inadequate for that distance, but the chimney is still extant and no longer in use (new furnace) -- thus it would be a viable spot to mount a rooftop antenna (unconventional but should be ok, right)? We were thinking about getting a large 13-foot #VU-190 from the local Radio Shack, ($105, -30% my cost) but I was reading the customer reviews on the site and many people complained of the plastic fasteners used to hold the tines to the main mast, which were prone to breaking and/or not holding the tines in place. Sounds like it's fine for the attic but not sturdy enough for outdoors. (Others reported no such problem). Also, some reported getting lousy reception, not much more than 25 miles, which doesn't sound right for a 13+ foot antenna(?) The house in question here is a huge, old 3 story house and thus it would have good height for a roof antenna -- but installation would be harder at that height and of course you wouldn't want to continually have to go up there and mess with it. (Iowa, harsh winters). I would think Radio Shack of all places would be able to give you a good antenna -- maybe the people who posted the complaints didn't install it properly (since others had no complaints). Would you suggest any other antenna instead? Also, is there any reason not to have two antennas (a second, smaller UHF) on the same mast -- one above the other, facing different directions? REALLY appreciate your help! It should be noted we're trying to keep the costs at a minimum, as this house just survived a flood (hence the new furnace) plus reeling from the roof and siding expense -- all within the last year --yikes!. Thanks again.

Reply to
James Goforth

Should be nicely flat terrain, though? That will help.

AntennaWeb

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has good info to help predict your antenna needs. Also give TVFool a try. They have some cool mapping apps on-line.

You can use one of these (stupidly long URL ...)

or 'most any other splitter/combiner to paste the two antennas together. There will be a bit of injection loss, of course.

The two antennas will interact but with then reasonably far apart and with the sensitive axis of each unobstructed then you should be able to just aim and go.

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Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA
Reply to
Rich Webb

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