hello fellas, all the sudden with my recent lay-off, the old monkey really has to watch his money....sometimes but not to often i kick back and watch a lil tv. being a old monkey, growing up tv was always free...and even when i had money, i could never find a way to justify in my mind to pay for television. just stubborn i guess, i donno. i got the HDTV conversion box with a free coupon. but the picture wasn't to hot....was messin on you-tube and ran across a video of a homemade HDTV antenna. i built one, and it works spectacular. i was gonna cut the base outta depron, but didnt want to mess with it. also i seen some antennas that are made to fit into a picture frame, but i can stick mine behind the tv, or in the attic. this works fantastic, and just wanted to share this, in case ther are fellas with sudden lack of funds like myself. peace, randy.

 

Yours looks a lot better than mine. The quad bowtie is good, even better when you jump to 2,4 or even 8 bays of 4 if you need that kind of gain. One thing about DTV is that you can over power the rx and get nothing.

The site TVfool.com has a neat google maps plugin that can give you a good idea of the signal strength in your area and the amount of gain you'll need to pull in the stations.

In my case I'm 40 miles from my areas major stations, which all happen to be on the same mountain. Then I also have another group of station from another city a few hundred miles away at about 30° off. I also wanted an indoor antenna (s) for no attic reasons.

I taught an 8 yr old girl how to use a power screwdriver to build one for me and two for her family. (gotta love those star bits). I could hang my up high in my room and it works fine. 42 stations total with the close ones at 80% and the others at 25%.

Now the living room had a different issue. I couldn't go high and it looks a little to ghetto for my GF. So I made a TTFD or Tilted Terminated Folded Dipole. Since a TTFD is a broadband miracle imo and fairly directional, then setting it up on top of the entertainment center would 'aim' it at the far stations and I'd just grab the majors off the side.

I worked great, far simpler to make and really easy to hide. Come to find out its not all that directional really for UHF. My neighbor put hers on the floor
Here is an SK pic to save me the typing on how it made.

John ab7xy Attached files

 

t-bird, i used .047dia music wire....got a pile for makin foamie push rods. all i did was solder mine together, as i didnt have screws around...i like the other one you made, it does look easier to hide, randy.t-bird,

 

lols eric.....

 

wow !! ill bet that does work nice....did your father have plans? man that thing looks like a ailen device to signal a contact with the mothership. lols next time ya talk to your dad, tell him the old monkey said good job...randy.