[PLUG] MythTV Testing - HDTV choppy

[King Beowulf]

On 09/21/2013 01:06 AM, John Meissen wrote:
> 
> kingbeowulf at gmail.com said:
>> 5. I built my own DTV antenna for grins: 
>> http://cdn.makezine.com/make/television/04/DTV_Antenna_FINAL.pdf 
>> I used scraps: some leftover 18 gauge Cu wire and a piece of cork flooring. 
>> I get excellent 1080i reception of PDX stations from Vancouver at ground
>> level.
> 
> I'm surprised you get such good reception. That's a UHF antenna, and 3 of the 
> Portland stations are VHF (8, 10 and 12).
> 
> 
> 
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Ah, that's the beauty of this simple design: it can pull in all PDX DTV
channels just fine.  Its great that I built this with leftover scrap
building material in the garage!  A spiffier design is Gray-Hoverman:
http://www.digitalhome.ca/ota/superantenna/design.htm

There are several other designs.  One is a better fractal design that I
plan to try. Here is an example using Al foil on clear plastic:
http://www.htpc-diy.com/2012/04/diy-flexible-fractal-window-hdtv.html

You can increase the number of elements and the Koch curve iterations:
http://makezine.com/2012/01/30/diy-fractal-antenna-for-digital-tv/

"Signal strength" also depends on your DTV tuner.  I suspect that some
(most?) HDTV manufacturers are skimping figuring that most people just
plug into one of the HDMI jacks.  Since 99% of DTV is in the UHF, I
wouldn't be surprised if some DTV tuners skip proper VHF support.

(Note: Anyone that has a high quality roof top VHF/UHF antenna from the
old analog days already has a dang good DTV antenna.  The only reason I
bothered to build one is because the last TV antenna I had was 20+ years
ago!)

But I digress (rainy Saturday!). Yes, this simple design is plenty good
enough in PDX.  If you need more frequency response, replace the bow tie
elements with Koch fractals.

-Ed