Quote:
Originally Posted by tysonK
My ant sitting on my bookcase near the ceiling gets all the majors perfect and the spanish and pbs ones. I guess I'm just lucky.
Does the TV matter at all or is it all in the ant?
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TV's sensitivity can matter, but they are all pretty good. We have been tuning UHF for quite a few years, and PLL digital tuning chipsets are damn good.
It is as much about distance and obstacles as it is about antenna design. RF is an inverse square thing, so 2 times the distance = 1/4 the signal strength. Dirt between you and the antenna is also bad as RF doesn't pass through it well.
The closer the obstacle is to you, the worse it is. You can also get reflections off of large structures like sky scrapers if you are near them that will partially cancel or corrupt the signal.
Most of the majors are up on Peavine and/or Mt Rose. so if you can see them, or can almost see them, most any antenna will work. The further away you get or more obstacles, the better the antenna you need.
I can't see either mountain even jumping up and down on my roof. Large mounds of dirt & rock North and South...
I get zero majors with the little antenna even with the amp cranked to 11.
With my deck mounted roof antenna, no amp and only 20' of cable, (you lose signal in cable as well), I get low 60s% signal strength according to my TV. This is just barely stable and occasionally drops out.
I want something a little more stable. I had an idea and built a double "quad" base this morning, but need to build a reflector for it. it is deceptively simple. I may double it up to be a 4 loop "quad" if it doesn't cut it. 2 stacked figure eights insulated at the upper and lower crossovers. Broadcast TV is vertically polarized, so the loops actually need to be one on top of the other. I am just to lazy to rotate the photo.(And don't ask me why they are called quads... Each loop is a single wavelength, so it makes no sense to me.)