World's Simplest HD Antenna! It WORKS!

[Bruce Wrenn]

Take a piece of coax, with a connector on one end. On the other end, remove, both outer and inner insulation for 6". You are done. Try various locations / positions to achieve best results.

[William Adams]

A design made of coat hangers works quite well and isn’t much more trouble to make: http://makezine.com/2009/01/23/maker-workshop-dtv-antenna-steadyca/

[Bruce Wrenn]

I've got a version of the coat hanger (mine's copper) antenna. It works no better than the stripped coax

[Sean Troy]

Take a piece of coax, with a connector on one end. On the other end, remove, both outer and inner insulation for 6". You are done. Try various locations / positions to achieve best results.
Any Pictures?

[Kev Williams]

It kills me when I see ads on TV for these 'magical' antennas (for only $39.95) that pick up free TV!

Almost anyone who's lived in the same house for 15 years has an old pair of rabbit ears and the adapters needed laying around in a junk drawer, to connect them to any flatscreen TV.

--just like these I have kicking around, all ready to go!

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[Paul Lawrence]

Fellows, there's a difference in your picture when you receive all the bandwidth that is being transmitted. That's why there are so many elements in a yagi style HD antenna.

[Sean Troy]

It kills me when I see ads on TV for these 'magical' antennas (for only $39.95) that pick up free TV!

Almost anyone who's lived in the same house for 15 years has an old pair of rabbit ears and the adapters needed laying around in a junk drawer, to connect them to any flatscreen TV.

--just like these I have kicking around, all ready to go!

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I don't think those will pick up an HD signal.

[Larry Browning]

I don't think those will pick up an HD signal.
I think this is a common misconception. There is nothing special about an OTA "HD" signal. The antennas we used to use years ago will still work today. It's all just marketing. The ads will say HD antenna implying that there is something special about the antenna. While it is true that it will pick up an HD signal, it is also true that all antennas will pick up that signal too.

[Jerome Stanek]

I don't think those will pick up an HD signal.

Yes they will

[Paul Lawrence]

Like I said previously, it has to do with bandwidth. What you see on your screen depends on what the receiver receives. You may not care if you see everything that is broadcast, but a whole lot of people do.

Think about the difference between listening to music on an old time small transistor radio and compare it to listening to music on a BOSE type sound machine.

But then again you might have "tin ears" from life's assault on your hearing, too.

Received bandwidth makes a difference in what you see on the screen.

[Dick Strauss]

I tried at least 6 versions of "HD" antennas after the switch to HD happened. I tried postions near windows, vertical, horizontal, rotated through all 360 degrees, etc. None worked as well as rabbit ears according to my observations and the signal meter! Needless to say, I made lots of returns that week.

[Duane Meadows]

Like I said previously, it has to do with bandwidth. What you see on your screen depends on what the receiver receives. You may not care if you see everything that is broadcast, but a whole lot of people do.

Think about the difference between listening to music on an old time small transistor radio and compare it to listening to music on a BOSE type sound machine.

But then again you might have "tin ears" from life's assault on your hearing, too.

Received bandwidth makes a difference in what you see on the screen.

Not true. With digital, it is all or none. You either get a picture or you don't. It may pixilate if the signal is weak, but that just means at that instant you didn't get the picture info.

The "bandwidth" hasn't changed. the reason yagis(log periodics, actually. Yagis just have additional elements for more gain, not wider bandwidth!) have different length elements is so they cover multiple frequencies(ie channels!).

If you get a strong enough signal with the split coax(it's basically a dipole) you will get just as good a picture as with a $300 antenna. Beauty of digital, it either works or it doesn't. Not weak/snowy picture as with analog/NTSC broadcast. If it is not pixilating, freezing, or totally not there, you are getting the best picture your TV is capable of!

The 6" dipole will work best on UHF channels. May well work on VHF if you are close enough, but certainly is not the correct length for those frequencies!

[William Adams]

Yep.

I was able to use plain rabbit ears in my basement to pick up PBS when the digital TV transition first began --- then they reduced power when the other stations went digital, and I no longer got a signal.

Fashioned the antenna in the link, and got a weak signal when conditions were perfect in the basement, moved it up to the living room (fortunately there was already a hole in the floor for the cable) and was back to watching _This Old House_ --- when the weather is bad I have to lift it up into the window. If there are shows worth watching on other stations I can rotate it by leaning it against a different wall.

Most (all?) digital-ready TVs have a feature which will allow you to get information on signal strength --- try it w/ various antennas to see which best suits your situation.

[Marty Gulseth]

Hi All,

What I have to say here may come across as a bit "know-it-all', but that's not my intent. However, I do have experience in this area, some professional.

Assuming there is a reasonably strong signal to be had - urban or suburban area - most anything will work. For receiving, antenna "bandwidth" is usually forgiving.

Antenna "gain" is another matter entirely, and that's where the multi-element antennas come into play. But, in some cases, "gain" antennas can be a case of too much of a good thing - see the next paragraph!

Another issue can be multipath interference. Living in the west like I do, signals at TV frequencies can "bounce off" of hills, buildings, sometimes even trees, and you have essentially the same signal arriving at your antenna at two or more different times. That phenomena can cause lots of aggravation. Those so-called "gain" antennas are not the opposite of the beam from a flashlight - they have some response to signals arriving from the sides, etc. so they may actually aggravate the situation if a multipath situation is present.

Bottom line: (1) there is (IMNSHO) a fair amount of marketing hype in the descriptions of the so called "HD antennas". (2) If you want to try something DIY and simple, and it works for you, then it works. Again, receiving antennas can be pretty forgiving.

Regards, Marty

[Fred Perreault]

How close to the transmission source should you be to expect any kind of reception? I live in Orleans, Cape Cod, at the lofty elevation of 60 ft. above sea level ( one of the higher elevations in town). I could put some kind of recieving device on the roof of my house and have no obstructions all the way to Boston, about 65 miles away. Are there any antennas, home made or commercial that will pick up output that far away?

[Garth Almgren]

How close to the transmission source should you be to expect any kind of reception? I live in Orleans, Cape Cod, at the lofty elevation of 60 ft. above sea level ( one of the higher elevations in town). I could put some kind of recieving device on the roof of my house and have no obstructions all the way to Boston, about 65 miles away. Are there any antennas, home made or commercial that will pick up output that far away?
For 65 miles, you probably would need a large directional antenna with a preamp, mounted as high as possible (mast on the chimney), but it is possible depending on where the transmitters are located exactly. You could check your address on http://www.antennapoint.com or http://www.antennaweb.org to see which stations you may be able to receive.

[Sean Troy]

Yes they will
I hope you are right. That will save me a few dollars. I probably have 2 or 3 of the rabbit ears around here somewhere.

[Myk Rian]

Take a piece of coax, with a connector on one end. On the other end, remove, both outer and inner insulation for 6". You are done. Try various locations / positions to achieve best results.
No need to remove the inner insulation.

[Garth Almgren]

If you get a strong enough signal with the split coax(it's basically a dipole) you will get just as good a picture as with a $300 antenna. Beauty of digital, it either works or it doesn't. Not weak/snowy picture as with analog/NTSC broadcast. If it is not pixilating, freezing, or totally not there, you are getting the best picture your TV is capable of!
The point above (emphasis mine) can't be stressed enough. You might need a more expensive antenna or a preamp to pull in weaker/distant signals, but if you're getting a clear picture, a signal is a signal; Doesn't matter if it's a tin-foil wrapped rabbit ear or a NASA-designed yagi on a 80' tower - the picture quality will be the same. :D

[Myk Rian]

The problem with a Yagi, it's for VHF signals. A cheap bowtie UHF antenna will get the HD channels.

[Larry Browning]

The problem with a Yagi, it's for VHF signals. A cheap bowtie UHF antenna will get the HD channels.


So, Myk, Is that your TV antenna on top of your kids heads in your avatar ?

[Myk Rian]

Yeah. One is HD, the other is FM.

[Bruce Wrenn]

No need to remove the inner insulation.


No, but you do need to remove both braid and shielding foil.

[Duane Meadows]

The problem with a Yagi, it's for VHF signals. A cheap bowtie UHF antenna will get the HD channels.

No, the yagi antenna is for the frequency it was designed for... UHF has shorter, closer spaced elements. Also many so called Yagi antennas, are not. They are log periodic antennas.

http://www.comprodcom.com/data/images/Antenne_de_base/480-70.jpg

From Tech0pedia...
"A Yagi antenna is a directional antenna consisting of a driven element such as dipole or folded dipole and additional parasitic elements, typically a reflector and one or more directors. It radiates in only one direction and is most commonly used in point-to-point communications. "

From wiki...

A log-periodic antenna (LP), also known as alog-periodic array or log-periodic aerial, is a multi-element, directional, antenna designed to operate over a wide band of frequencies. It was invented by Dwight Isbell and Raymond DuHamel at the University of Illinois in 1958.


http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/scanants/1825.jpg

VHF channels still require VHF antennas. I know that seems obvious, but...

Again, if you are close enough you may receive VHF with only a UHF antenna, but at any distance from the station, A real VHF antenna will give you a better chance of reception.

Antennas are designed for a frequency, or range of frequencies, and really don't care what mode(ie analog vs digital) is being used! For that matter, those same antennas, recut to the correct frequency, and fed properly will work just as well for things other than TV!

[Pat Barry]

An antenna, such as the stripped coax will obviously work for strong signals. Placed vertically it will be omnidirectional, placed horizontally less so, but you may find a sweet spot. The thing is, where I need this, the coax is a lousy solution due to signal strength, frequency range, obstructions (leaves and trees), and number of stations I would like to get that all broadcast from multiple locations in all different directions. What I need is the multielement array with a rotator so I can tune it to the direction of the signal I want to acquire. I think much of the commentary here is non-technical so maybe folks ar happy to recieve a station or two at close rnage without obstructions so they can be satisfied with something like a stripped coax or rabbit ears, but they are giving misguided directions. If these same people used a better antenna, designed for HD, they would be surprised at the number of additional stations they will pick up. Lets face it, most of the folks commenting here are not antenna designers and if they think they know more about the topic than radio engineers then all I can say is that they are wrong.

[Jason Roehl]

If you're using antennas, one little bit of info that can help immensely is to know the exact direction to the transmitting tower. Sites like antennaweb.org have this info. Years ago, I was messing with an antenna on my house in Mulberry, IN. I was trying to improve the signal from the local TV station from Lafayette, which is WNW of Mulberry. Only later did I find out, through the above website, that the TV station's transmitter was in Rossville--NNE of Mulberry. And, as I recall, even though most of the Indianapolis TV stations are downtown, their transmitters are on the east side of Indy.

For the record, if your digital picture is pixelating, the signal is VERY weak--a comparable analog signal would be watchable but you would get white noise, and the picture would be faint. The upside is that just a slightly better digital signal is as clear as day, whereas the comparable analog signal would have to get quite a bit stronger before it wasn't obviously, visibly deficient.

[Dan Friedrichs]

Placed vertically it will be omnidirectional, placed horizontally less so, but you may find a sweet spot.
Not entirely true. Radio waves have polarization, so if the transmitter antenna is vertically oriented, you'll benefit from placing the receiving antenna in that same orientation. Generally, man-made transmissions are vertically polarized to overcome naturally occurring noise with horizontal polarization.



The thing is, where I need this, the coax is a lousy solution due to signal strength, frequency range, obstructions (leaves and trees), and number of stations I would like to get that all broadcast from multiple locations in all different directions.

Yes, selecting any antenna is going to be a compromise. Signals transmit on different frequencies from different directions. You could choose a very high-gain antenna designed for a particular frequency and pointed a particular direction, but that may result in not receiving other signals (at other frequencies or directions).

The coax antenna being discussed is a dipole, which has fairly uniform gain, but must be designed for a particular frequency. For a receiving antenna, it's not overly critical. You could certainly use a higher-gain antenna (a yagi or log periodic), but nothing comes for free - if you increase the gain of an antenna, it's not uniform - it increases gain in one direction at the expense of others. If you have multiple transmitters at different location around you, a yagi would be a poor choice over a dipole (unless you mounted it to a rotator, like you suggested).



designed for HD,

There is no such thing as an antenna "designed for HD". HDTV is an encoding/modulation scheme - has nothing to do with receiving the signal.

[Duane Meadows]

An antenna, such as the stripped coax will obviously work for strong signals. Placed vertically it will be omnidirectional, placed horizontally less so, but you may find a sweet spot. The thing is, where I need this, the coax is a lousy solution due to signal strength, frequency range, obstructions (leaves and trees), and number of stations I would like to get that all broadcast from multiple locations in all different directions. What I need is the multielement array with a rotator so I can tune it to the direction of the signal I want to acquire. I think much of the commentary here is non-technical so maybe folks ar happy to recieve a station or two at close rnage without obstructions so they can be satisfied with something like a stripped coax or rabbit ears, but they are giving misguided directions. If these same people used a better antenna, designed for HD, they would be surprised at the number of additional stations they will pick up. Lets face it, most of the folks commenting here are not antenna designers and if they think they know more about the topic than radio engineers then all I can say is that they are wrong.

Just for the record, I may not be an "Antenna Engineer" but I do have a diploma in Broadcast Engineering, an Amateur Radio Extra Class license, and have held a 1st Class Commercial Radio license.

I have also spent 40+ years in the Electronics/TV/2 way radio repair business, so I do believe I have a bit of an understanding of the subject at hand.
Would you like to try again?

[Pat Barry]

Just for the record, I may not be an "Antenna Engineer" but I do have a diploma in Broadcast Engineering, an Amateur Radio Extra Class license, and have held a 1st Class Commercial Radio license.

I have also spent 40+ years in the Electronics/TV/2 way radio repair business, so I do believe I have a bit of an understanding of the subject at hand.
Would you like to try again?
Try what again? Or are you the one advocating the stripped coax wire solution? If so, what is the porper length for that striped section of coax? LOL

[Bill Cunningham]

Try what again? Or are you the one advocating the stripped coax wire solution? If so, what is the porper length for that striped section of coax? LOL

A good starting point used to be 468/frq in mhz. For the overall length of a 1/2 wave dipole. Don't know if it works at those freq. Though ��

[Dan Friedrichs]

A good starting point used to be 468/frq in mhz. For the overall length of a 1/2 wave dipole. Don't know if it works at those freq. Though ��

Indeed it does. With most digital TV being transmitted on the UHF bands around 400MHz, ~6" of stripped coax (per side) is about right (as the OP said).