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Re: [Amps] Amplified TV Antenna

To: amps@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [Amps] Amplified TV Antenna
From: "Roger (K8RI)" <k8ri@rogerhalstead.com>
Date: Sat, 07 Jul 2012 02:39:25 -0400
List-post: <amps@contesting.com">mailto:amps@contesting.com>
On 7/6/2012 10:17 PM, W2XJ wrote:
> To a degree, yes. It is that the newer DTV tuner chips perform better
> under multipath conditions where NTSC was very sensitive to ghosts and
> required a very directional antenna. With DTV, scanning does not work
> that well when there are stations in multiple directions. In such cases
> an omni antenna is required. When the transmitters are in one general
> direction but not exactly in the same location, a vertically stacked
> bowtie is best. DTV requires re-thinking what we have accepted as VHF
> and UHF propagation.

My experience is an antenna is an antenna is an antenna is an antenna. 
It makes no difference in the antenna type, they do not care whether the 
signal is analog or digital.

there is no such thing as a digital or analog antenna, nor is there one 
that works better on digital or analog Vs the other
Nor have I ever noticed a difference in types versus modes.

I use very long Yagi antennas I did have two, one to the SSE and one to 
the NW.  http://www.rogerhalstead.com/ham_files/tower39.htm  only shows 
the one pointed to the SSE.

Although it specifically a UHF antenna it worked well across the entire 
UHF spectrum.  With the antenna mounted preamps they worked equally well 
on VHF from CH 2 through 13 although not very directional, but reception 
was good out to around 60 miles or more.  At 90 miles you couldn't tell 
the difference between that station and a local  BTW although the gain 
fell off they did well up to 60 degrees off the main axis.  On axis with 
the one to the NW I could receiver Traverse city which is over 110 miles.

The bow tie has been popular for two reasons. It is very broad band and 
it is *cheap*! It is rare to do weak signal work on UHF because the 
horizon + 13% is so close the signal is either strong or not there. 
Even the Radio Shack long Yagis work just fine across the entire UHF 
spectrum.  When both Yagis were up I could get over 22 stations like 
they wee local.  I could get Kalamazoo and GrandRapids if I swung the 
antenna 45 degrees to the SW.

I did at one time have a quadrature array of them up but concluded they 
were just not worth the effort and I'd much rather have a big ham 
antenna up there. http://www.rogerhalstead.com/ham_files/tower21.htm

Noise is a fact of life with Analog regardless of frequency, it just 
isn't as strong in the UHF range. I used to get both Ch 2 and Ch 50 
analog out of Detroit.  That is until that religious station on channel 
49 one came on one week after I put up a winegard dish.  50 came in 
great. A week later I could not find it because 49 was in a direct line 
with 50.  They told me, you can't get 50 up there. I told them that was 
true now, but it wasn't a week ago.  It didn't matter as I was too far 
out on their maps.

Antennas for low and high VHF were Broadband by design.  They were 
really two antennas in one.  In the early days they made a lot of 
monobanders...Ie for specific channels.


>
>
> On 7/6/12 10:09 PM, Eric Lowell wrote:
>> I'm sure that you don't mean to imply that the operation of the antenna
>> is dependent on the type of modulation?
>>
>> Do you?
>>
>> Best Regards, Eric
>> On 7/6/2012 9:52 PM, W2XJ wrote:
>>> That is not entirely correct. A 'digital' antenna is generally one that
>>> is either omni or has a wide beamwidth. A bowtie is a 'digital' antenna.
>>> Yagis and logs do not usually work so well. Unfortunately, a lot of this
>>> depends on the skill set of the end user. With a typical consumer those
>>> skills are nonexistent which mean a lot of confusion.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 7/6/12 1:53 PM, Robert Morris wrote:
>>>> On Jul 6, 2012, at 1:03 PM, Jim Brown wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 7/6/2012 11:13 AM, Jerry Kaidor wrote:
>>>>>      Need a little advice here.
>>>> I get excellent results from an old standby 4x2 bow-tie with reflector.
>>>>
>>>> And if you go to Radio Shack, the kid will tell you need a digital 
>>>> antenna, just like when you needed the special one for
>>>> color RF.
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>
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