Good (small) indoor antenna for DTV reception?

[Phil Nelson]

Can anyone suggest a good small indoor antenna for reception with a digital converter box?

I'm looking for something that can fit in a small bedroom without making it look like Frankenstein's lab.

Don't talk about bolting stuff on the roof, erecting towers in the yard, etc. Big outdoor antennas are not in the picture, and I can't poke any holes into this room.

So far, I have tried 3 antennas in this room: an old Rembrandt rabbit ear (poor), a modern Radio Shack amplified antenna (better), and a 4-foot long roof antenna that I harvested from an attic (best).

All suggestions are welcome. I'm able to bend & solder copper tubing and wire, so if there is a homebrew plan that would work, that might be fun (and more attractive than most commercial antennas).

Regards,

Phil Nelson

[OvenMaster]

A lot will depend on what your walls are made of (plaster with metal lath indoors? brick outdoors? aluminum siding?), what sort of insulation you have (foil-backed fiberglas?), distance to the transmitter(s), houses in the way, trees, bushes; height above ground, etc. Heck, I have an amplified antenna on a 25 foot mast with a rotator, and because of all the trees, there are some DTV stations just 25 miles away that are now impossible to get. I'll have to wait until autumn and winter to be able to watch anything on CBS.

Basically, unless you have any DTV stations on VHF channels, a good regular UHF antenna is where you'd start. If you have a window where you'd be able to aim an antenna at the transmitter, with a minimum of obstructions, that would be a big help. Sensitivity of the DTV converter is also an issue.

[kbmuri]

http://www.ccrane.com/antennas/tv-an...v-antenna.aspx

[wa2ise]

If all the digital channels in your town are up on UHF and fairly strong, an old fashioned UHF hoop antenna will work fine.

[andy]

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[oldtvman]

Unlike it's analog counter-part digital signals are either on or off, I agree with oven-master that a lot depends upon what type of building you live in. The phase shift on the digital signal will cause it to totally drop out. I do think some of the amplified indoor antennas do work well like the terk models.

I just put up one of the Winegard models on the roof, it works very well

[Chad Hauris]

The best top of the set indoor UHF antennas for DTV I have found are the dual bow ties with rear reflector (gold type)...they perform better than the loop or rabbit ears.

[zenith2134]

I now use a 300-ohm uhf bowtie antenna mounted atop my set, with regular dipole rabbit ears. I route the vhf (dipole) into my Zenith balun under '2-13' and the bowtie into the '14-69' terminals. The signals are then mixed and sent 75-ohm into a male F-connector which i plug into my DTT900 converter. I average 90% reception on all channels found in the auto channel scan. I do live roughly 30 miles from the furthest transmitter, however.

I've been looking at some of the old Winegards for a more permanent solution.

[Dave S]

Phil,

Check out: http://uhfhdtvantenna.blogspot.com/

I haven't tried it yet, but an antenna authority in our club says this method may be good, fast AND cheap!

--Dave

[zenith2134]

Screw my wacky setup! I'm building this tomorrow. Thanks Dave i'll come back with the pics.

[Adam]

I don't know about dtv, but I'm always trying to pull in a good clear picture and sound on ch 56, which is about 50 mi away from me, and I'm in a bottom floor apt. What works for me is 2 of those 'bow tie' antennas. Clip them on to a pair of rabbit ears, on the same rabbit ear, one on top of the other, have them both facing the same direction, whatever produces the best reception, but I only connect the top 'bow tie' to the uhf converter, I've tried several different arrangements of bow ties and that works the best. In my experience the bow ties outperform the loops. I've never tried one of those dual bow ties with the rear reflector, which is basically what I'm talking about here with the addition of the reflector, so that might work better.

[Phil Nelson]

Originally Posted by Dave S

Phil,

Check out: http://uhfhdtvantenna.blogspot.com/

Well, that does look cheap and easy. Pretty ugly to tack on the wall in my new "TV room," but maybe I could paint it to match the wall.

FWIW, here is the little antenna that I found in the attic. It had a little green connector labeled with KCPQ 13, a local station. Evidently a promotional item from the time when KCPQ introduced their new UFH channel. I see a little bowtie. Is the rest of it a VHF antenna, or a reflector of some sort? (I know nothing about antennas.

Phil

[Dan Starnes]

Dave that antenna is awesome. Thanks for the info and pics on how to build it.
Dan

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by Phil Nelson

FWIW, here is the little antenna that I found in the attic. It had a little green connector labeled with KCPQ 13, a local station. Evidently a promotional item from the time when KCPQ introduced their new UHF channel. I see a little bowtie. Is the rest of it a VHF antenna, or a reflector of some sort? (I know nothing about antennas.

Phil

Looks like a Yagi antenna, made for 200MHz) pointing straight up into space. Yagis usually have their booms horizontal, pointing towards the station transmitter tower. The elements can be vertical or horizontal, to match what the transmitter antenna is doing. I don't see the bow-tie (this the right picture?). Also, it may be missing some parts, hard to tell. Hard to tell what the antenna lead in is connecting to.

[Phil Nelson]

There is a single bowtie behind the main staff (hard to see in that photo).

It is riveted to the second-to-top pair of crossbar elements and insulated from the rest of the elements by the blue plastic supports. The lead-in comes past the lower blue insulator, next to the yellow caution sticker, and goes to my DTV converter box.

In the attic, it was mounted horizontally (longest staff facing the ground, not the horizon). I just stuck it up this way because it's a small room and I have a short lead-in.

The bowtie is 14 inches long. The crossbars are 24 inches, and the main staff is 50 inches.

Phil Nelson