outdoor t.v. antenna from junk pile

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I just acquired a DTV satilite antenna system and found out that those people want $6.00 a month for local channels in addition to their other fees. Nay say I, for I have a junk pile! What I need is for someone to tell me which junk works best,i.e. a bicycle rim?, abed spring? that piece of expanded metal left over from the trailor project? And where do I put the wires? Next week: a touch tone phone!

-- mitch hearn (moopups1@aol.com), May 14, 2001

Answers

Thats $6.00 month if your local area is even available. What will work best is an antenna not junk. To many factors to decide what will work. How far you from the transmitter, what is in between you and the transmitter. How powerfull is the transmitter, What channel is the transmitter. All these affect the signal to you. How were you receiving TV before the dish? If it wasnt cable go back to that method.

-- Gary (gws@redbird.net), May 14, 2001.

Gary, 48 miles of flat land, 100,000 whatevers, no previous t.v. Junk pile is paid for, t.v. antenna is not, I'm on a pension. Recycle, reuse, reclaim....

-- mitch hearn (moopups1@aol.com), May 14, 2001.

Mitch:

So many people are going to satellite service, I suspect you could place a local classified ad and get a nice antenna just to haul it off.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), May 15, 2001.


Make nice with someone who has all the TV gizmos and hav'em tape shows for you!

-- Kathy (catfish201@hotmail.com), May 15, 2001.

What do your neighbours' antennae look like? Maybe I can give you enough info to play around a bit. Important questions are VHF or UHF?, horizontal or vertical polarization?. You can get those answers looking at the neighbours rooftops. Do they have horizontal or vertical bars? How many bars? About how long are the bars? Is there a looped shape bar in the middle. However I sort of suspect that those types of antennae have disappeared from US rooftops, maybe not.

-- john hill (john@cnd.co.nz), May 15, 2001.


Back when I was Much younger, I salvaged a radio and made an antenna out of an old bicycle rim. Hooked up some scrap t.v. antenna wire to it, and put it up on a pole. Worked great for the ol' radio, but don't know how it would do for t.v. Good luck!!

-- Uncle Jake (lulafred@cs.com), May 18, 2001.

Of course you can make your TV antenna out of junk but it does take a bit of knowledge and it not really practical unless you have good signal strength. If an old 'rabbits ears' indoor antenna works you can certainly improve on it.

The most simple junk TV antenna for a 75ohm antenna connection is a length of figure eight plastic 'tru-rip', which is the sort of plastic lead you might have for a portable lamp. Just connect one end of the lead to the antenna terminals of the TV (one wire to the centre of the conector and the other to the outer part), the other end of the lead you pull apart into a sort of 'T'. The idea is to get the total width of the 'Tee' to be half the wavelength of the signal you are interested in. I have no idea what frequency (i.e. wavelength) your local stations transmitts on but the width of the 'Tee' will be something less than, say, 4 ft. It might only be a few inches. This is a simple dipole that you tack up on an insulated support as high as possible where you have best view of where you think the signals come from, try rotating in both horizontal and vertical planes. If you have a signal good enough for the old 'rabbit ears' this will probably be an improvement. It will be a lot of messing around for a quite likely disappointing result, but if you like messing around......

-- john hill (john@cnd.co.nz), May 19, 2001.


I have a doubled piece of chicken wire about 3' long with a coat hanger attached, a cable wire cut, the end stripped bare to fasten to chicken wire. then the other end connected to VCR, from there to TV, the regular way.works great. this is laying on top of my TV. you must look for you strongest signal in your house. walk around with the lines connected.

-- lexi Green (whitestone11@hotmail.com), May 19, 2001.

Hi guys,

First of all let me set some of you strait....TV stations transmit their signals off of their antenna with a horizontal polarization...There for in order to get the best POSSIBLE signal you need to be polarized with station....Cross-Polarization is not that good of a tactic because you are reducing the signal strength when working cross-polar. So the first thing to remember is to AWAYS USE A HORIZONTAL polarization.....The next step is to understand something else that is simple....Like one author of a message on this board wrote....Get "rip-cord" or the cord that is used on lamps..and just about any other light-duty appliance made today....Find out the average frequency for all your local stations then take your average frequency divided by 468 and then make a simple dipole by ripping down the cord until you have the proper horizontal length.........SIMPLE CONCEPTS>>>>>>>>>

Sean

-- SMSTOW1 (smstow1@yahoo.com), July 13, 2001.


Or use this method:

http://www.wfu.edu/~matthews/misc/dipole.html

----- >>>>>SIMPLE CONCEPTS<<<<<<<<

-- SMSTOW1 (smstow1@yahoo.com), July 13, 2001.



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