Digital TV Converter - 3 - Antennas
So… to bring you up to date, I’ve ben looking at the digital tv conversion process. I’ve got a magnavox converter box and live in suburban/rural fringe area in the mountains. The nearest city is the other side of the mountains from us and our line of sight view is towards Tennessee (we live in North Carolina near Asheville.) After the first round of testing with a cheap ($6-$8 antenna) left me thinking that the digital conversion was going to leave is in a slightly worse reception spot than before. Yes, crisp pictures are possible, but from what I’ve been able to do our signal still wasn’t enough to keep a solid signal.
So, I thought it was time to look at alternative antennas to see if I could at least get a solid signal for our local station. So i picked up two to test with, both internal antennas. One is an RCA ANT146 “high performance” antenna with a built in tuner. The other is a powered antenna - again RCA this time the ANT1251 with 55db of amplification.
So… based on my experience with the “cheap” wire antenna, I thought at last one of these would REALLY impress me. I had visions of pulling in the channels solid with MAYBE one that I had caught a few frames from. Well…. No.
I plugged in the cheaper of the two, the $15 ANT146 and thought with the same placement I would at least be able to get a solid picture on the local channel. No, in fact it was about the same as the cheap 6-8 dollar antenna. I tried adjusting the tuning and the best I could do was comparable with the cheapest… Disappointing to say the least.
Next I thought I’d give the amplified antenna a try. ($30) The 55dB of amplification had me REALLY thinking this was going to pull signals out of nowhere.. Again… no. In fact I plugged it in and hooked it up and it did WORSE than the other two. I couldn’t get ANYTHING. (So, then I started juicing up the amplification (adjustable dials for VHF and UHF.) ) Finally at 100% amplification I’m back about where I started with the cheap 6-8 dollar antenna - with a sketchy signal….
Now here’s the summary. IF you’re in a fringe area looking for an improvement on the cheapest of antennas, you might want to consider going with a directional antenna instead of an omnidirectional. Yes, the UHF loops can be directional, (bidirectional actually) but it’s not really optimized for resonant amplification like a yagi style antenna (remember the old rooftop tv antenna style?) I’ve seen some small indoor yagi style for the uhf range which is the area I’m interested in next.
Outdoor antenna versus indoor antenna. Indoor antennas by definition will not pull in as much as an outdoor antenna. For starters, there are more potential sources of interference indoors as well as more “Things” that can block or reflect/refract the signal. IF you wan’t really good reception, get a really good OUTDOOR antenna. By the way, (in the US) there are legal allowances for antennas EVEN in neighborhoods with restrictive community agreements. You should know what your rights are in that regard.
Amplified vs. passive antennas. An amplified antenna of the style that I’ve tested, the ANT1251 essentially makes EVERYTHING it receives louder. In this case, I suspect the signal isn’t any better with it because the noise and reflections are amplified JUST like the main signal. So… there are some circumstances that amplification can be a good thing. A directional antenna (where extraneous noise is rejected) could become even better with amplification. (At least in theory.) Also, an antenna that could be tuned to an exact frequency (and only amplify THAT frequency) could benefit from amplification.
Beyond that, buyer beware when it comes to the sub $50 indoor antennas.
Finally, I have managed to get a 90% solid signal by MUCH trial and error in placement. Again surprisingly the best signal I’ve got is STILL with the $6-$8 RCA cheapo antenna. (With ONE broken dipole no less.) Try as I might I just CAN’T seem to get a placement out of the other two that is as solid.
Some other things that I actually liked design wise on the amplified RCA ANT1251 were the additional antenna input (to daisy chain another antenna or cable connection). There’s also a 3 way switch between amplified, non-amplified and bypass to the other input. I like that, just with it wasn’t quite so “deaf”.
