Old OTA antenna

[keegster17]

are the current OTA antenna's just as good as the old ones you see on top of old houses? We have one and it is more current than most peoples, as it it maybe 10 years old. Problem is the thing is huge and a eye sore. This one we have spans probably 12 ft long.

[Hunter11]

are the current OTA antenna's just as good as the old ones you see on top of old houses? We have one and it is more current than most peoples, as it it maybe 10 years old. Problem is the thing is huge and a eye sore. This one we have spans probably 12 ft long.

There are plenty that are fairly small and work well, hell you can even make one of your own out of a piece of wood and some coat hangers, google it and you will find the you tube on how to make one, (see links Below) I made one and it works great. I had one pointed at Toronto CN tower and another pointed toward Buffalo. I don't use now as I have cable.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWQhlmJTMzw


A more enterprising attempt:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0m6AfR-9As


http://www.diytvantennas.com/BowtieDiagram.png

[keegster17]

but are the old big one better or same as these newer smaller compact ones?

[jvvh5897]

The older antennas were big because they had to try to get the low VHF channels--chs 2-6. FCC tried to move all the digital channels off those frequencies to higher chs 7-12 and UHF 13-51. Ch 2 was around 52 MHz and ch 7 around 150MHz so IF you only need the higher freq chs then your antenna could be 1/3 the size of the ones for the low VHF band. But if you still need to get low band signals you should be using an antenna for them. If you try to get FM radio with the same antenna as for TV then you likely would want to keep the bigger antenna too.

IMO anyone that thinks a TV antenna is an eyesore is a bit too critical--they are there for a reason, not aesthetics

[Terryl]

The old ones will work just as good as the new ones. (in some areas)

As long as they haven't changed the channel band plan to all UHF in your area, and the old antenna has a UHF section, your OK.

I would however change the coax to some new RG-6, and if it has a 300 ohm to 75 ohm bauln transformer on it, I would change that also.

Coax degrades over time, the older stuff doesn't last as long as the new stuff.

To all:

The only difference between the old analog TV antennas and the newer so called HD digital antennas, is the diameter of the channel elements, the old analog TV signal was 6.5 MHz wide, the new digital HD channels are 10 MHz wide, to get the wider signal they increase the diameter of the radial signal element. (no don't go out and measure it, as it's not that big of an increase)

Another determining factor is the new TV channel band plans, they dropped the TV channels 2 to 6 and moved them to UHF channels, or in some cases hi band VHF channels (7 to 13) if available.

This caused a big mess as they didn't take into account that UHF doesn't travel as far as VHF does, the normal VHF transmitter was 50,000 watts, and could cover out to 175 miles, a UHF transmitter needs to be at around 5,000,000 watts to cover the same area, and maybe the same distance.


So if your TV channels have changed to the UHF band, and you can't receive then now, then you may need a bigger UHF TV antenna or a good pre-amp.

[keegster17]

I am in Toronto, and we would just like to eliminate this big antenna for aesthetics, that is why I ask if the smaller modern ones are just as good? this way we can eliminate this big one and take it to the cottage or something. lol

[hawk2]

I have made one out of bailing wire for outside and one out of coat hangers for inside and they both pick up H.D.channels very good. Recently I have replaced both with store bought. I would say the outside ones was best because they did not pick up house interference. From what I have read OTA is the best picture you can receive.

[Terryl]

I am in Toronto, and we would just like to eliminate this big antenna for aesthetics, that is why I ask if the smaller modern ones are just as good? this way we can eliminate this big one and take it to the cottage or something. lol

It all depends on the channels in your area and your location to them.

Take a look at TVfool.com, enter you address, and it will give you an idea on if you can go with a smaller antenna, but with some TV signals bigger is better in most cases.



http://www.tvfool.com

[Terryl]

Actually if you want to play with the AGL on TV fool, you will see the advantage of the higher antenna.

AGL is Above Ground Level, try this at 3, 10, 20, 40 and 50 feet, see how many more channels you can get, or how the signal strengths change, and the antennas needed at that level above ground.

If you go higher, you could go with a smaller antenna.

[Terryl]

I have made one out of bailing wire for outside and one out of coat hangers for inside and they both pick up H.D.channels very good. Recently I have replaced both with store bought. I would say the outside ones was best because they did not pick up house interference. From what I have read OTA is the best picture you can receive.

True, some of the OTA signals are in full 1080i or P, and they don't need to compress the signal as much as the cable and satellite providers do.

Also some cable providers up-convert the signals to 1080i, and the satellite providers (Dish) send the signal at 720P then the receiver up-converts it to 1080i, or 1080P, they don't have the channel bandwidth to do full 1080i or P, and they have to compress the heck out of the HD signals to get them to fit, so you loose picture information and quality.

And an antenna inside will have to contend with the house walls and roof to get the signal, that's why one outside will work better.

[rustie]

can use old uhf antennes

[D-troit]

The following pdf file was compiled by channel master field engineers and even though it was published in the good ol days it contains some great information for doing a professional install for your self.

[keegster17]

Terryl, you seem very knowledgeable about this stuff, so I am going back again on this with you. This large antenna I have, and I live near, Lake Ontario in Toronto, literally 200 ft from the lake. I have a rotatory antenna, but have difficulty picking channels like 2, 11, 57, 47, 7 and a few more US stations. Now is it possible to get most channels without moving the antenna? I went to a local sat shop and they are more north from the lake and had some very small outdoor antenna, and seemed he was pulling more channels than me, why would this be, and his is not rotary. Is it because my antenna is old? It is in good shape, not a old rusted one or anything like that. The cable installed is old and thin, but we use a channel master for the rotor controller, the antenna looks like something i found online CM-3679 ULTRA-HI CROSSFIRE HDTV ANTENNA, looks like this anyways, but out antenna is about 10 years old as mentioned.

[jvvh5897]

Your cable sounds like the old flat twin-lead kind rather than coax. In many ways twin-lead is OK, but coax is more tolerant of being near metal so it is often easier to install and often has less loss. I bet if you put in coax and an outdoor amp at the antenna you would be doing OK with the old antenna. Whether you get as many channels as the sat shop depends on too many factors to go into--like the elevation of the sat shop and its topography vs yours.

A 10 year old antenna is not very old. I use a 30 year old antenna inside my attic and it does just fine for the few OTA that I get. I've been known to take a basic antenna up into surrounding hills to see what I could get and depending on where I set up, I get 20 odd channels. With the setup used by the local translator system they get 40 odd channels with big antennas at very carefully selected site and amp at the uhf antenna but no amp at the vhf antenna (not much loss at those frequencies).

[Terryl]

The old flat twin lead antenna cable does not last very long, (10 years is about the max) you should replace it with RG-6 coax. <br />
<br />
To do this a 300 ohm to 75 ohm bauln coil will be needed at the...

[keegster17]

hey guys, thanks for response. My cable is like a rg6 cable, just very thin and quality not the best, but I think it should be fine. So it sounds like my Antenna should work, my cable sounds ok, not great, the height of antenna has to be 40ft, as it is double the height of our small bungalow home, so I wonder what is the real issue here? If we were to point to one thing what do you think?

[Terryl]

Check the coax, see what type it is, is it RG-6, RG-59 or something else?

RG-59 will have too much signal loss.

[keegster17]

Terryl, I think it might be rg-59, because it is a smaller cable than the rg-6, the skin or outer shielding is very hard compared to rg-6 today. I did look close but did not see any writing on the cable but I will double check. The cable run is a bit of a difficult one, I am wondering if I can just add a amp to make life easier?

Second question I have is regarding the remote controller model 9537 channel master. I took a compass and looked for truth North, I synced the controller and noticed it is slightly off of true North, is this important? secondly how can I preset channels to a location, for example, I get some channels 23,19,11,9,5 @ 159 on the controller, and some others in another location, I read the manual but it is confusing as hell.

[jvvh5897]

If you look at the pattern for antennas, they tend to have a broad peak directly in front of the antenna and the drop off is slow, so the direction is not that critical--the better you aim it the better signal, but you might have plus and minus 15 degrees with roughly the same gain (depends on the number of elements on the antenna). If the rg-59 is "hard" then it likely is old and brittle and should be replaced. I'm not a big fan of amps at the antenna but for UHF signals you just about have to have one for any length of coax.

[keegster17]

ok thanks, I will look at changing cable, could be a lot of work for what it is worth, but will consider. Anything on preset channels that I asked?

[Terryl]

Good to hear that your going to change the coax, it will make a difference, on the amp, if your run of coax is over 50 or more feet, and your a bit away from the TV stations (over 40 miles) then a pre-amp would be necessary.

[Terryl]

Also if you do another TVfool.com report you can post the report link back here (don't worry it wont give out your address) it will help us with your problems.

Just be sure to make it a dead link by changing the http: to hXXP: that will make it a dead link.