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    Very Good $2.00 Homemade Antenna For HDTV

    I'm working on one... I too found the double bay Gray-Hoverman antenna design. I'm making mine out of 12 AWG copper wire for the driven elements and chicken wire for the screen. With three small kids and some house remodeling, it's going slow, but I'll get there. I already have a...
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    Inside ac wiring suitable for antenna?

    AC wiring antenna 1. This is similar to a random-length wire antenna of many wavelengths. It's performance is very unpredictable and may be affected by people walking around the room or by other moving objects or pets. 2. Do consider safety. A wire stuck in the coaxial jack and wrapped...
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    Best indoor OTA antenna recommendations wanted, Thanks

    Antennas, preamp gain and picture distortion Antennas: Other posters here are correct. Use the best antenna you can. ALL TV antennas are HD-compatible. More antenna is preferable to a preamp or an amplified antenna. Good high-gain antennas are large, period. However, UHF antennas are...
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    Antenna near metal? and attic with tile?

    Try a 2- 4- or 8-bay antenna, or Hoverman (Google Gray-Hoverman for details) These antennas have screens on the back. If the metal is behind the screen, or parallel to it if the antenna is facing away from it, then the metal will not seriously affect reception. However, nearby metal can...
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    Long TV cable run up to mountain top

    Revisiting the coax I believe our friend was right when he bailed on this idea. It's solvable, but not easily and not cheaply. Ladder line: How do you control losses when the spacers get wet in the rain? About any line used, but especially coax: Animals may chew on it! It seems I...
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    Long TV cable run up to mountain top

    This is possible, but expensive. Use RG-11 cable, 1 CM-7777 preamp (2-2.7 dB NF) ~$60 at the antenna, and 5 MCM Electronics 5-950 MHz 10 dB (4 dB NF) ~$15 ea. in-line amps (DC passive) every 400 feet down the line. You might get 800' from the CM7777 to the 1st line amp. You'll need ~15V at...
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    How can I boost my signal ?

    Enjoy and good luck! There's MANY variables involved when trying to get distant OTA stations. No guarantees. Enjoy watching... that's what it's for. Good luck getting NBC.
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    Request for antenna/preamp recommendation

    Glad to be of help... Let me know what I missed so I can do better next time. I'm an RF engineer, no experience in receivers, but read up on OTA TV DXing. Any advice from those more knowledgeable is appreciated and I will use it to give better advice, as well as use it for my own project...
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    How can I boost my signal ?

    Weak signal reception He's right... Get the best antenna, high, in the clear line-of-sight path to the station, good preamp and coax. Now comes the fine-tuning: 1. The preamp must be at the antenna, with as little loss between the antenna connection and preamp as possible. Even 1/2...
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    Using a satellite dish to make a HD parabolic antenna? Worth it?

    Anybody got a crane???? You'll need one to install it! And a VERY beefy roof!:D
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    HD Signal Issues?

    Vareiable propagation on fringe Channel 6 Ch 6 is at ~80 MHz. Digital receoption has a "cliff effect" which may mean your signal strength only changes by 1 dB in your situation to have the effect yopu observe. Here are several possibilities for your situation, both tropospheric...
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    Request for antenna/preamp recommendation

    OTA reception... I'd recomment getting the antenna outside, above the roof. You'll lose significant signal (3-15 dB) in an attic. The wide variation in loss is due to many variables involved, from multipath to frequency-dependent RF loos to detuning wires, etc fount in an attic, to water...
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    CCTV leaving G3 soon

    CCTV4 still up on G3... as of Apr 25th.... Wife's happy! Husband's happy :-) One day at a time... FTA is never guaranteed. One of these days I'll replace the intermittent LNBF.:cool:
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    Combing Antennas, Will this work?

    Antennas can be combined ONLY under LIMITED conditions: For ALL frequencies of interest, they must match in phase and amplitude. This is done by people who know radio frequency engineering well, and will hurt performance if you don't kno what you're doing. This makes your attempt very...
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    What no one will tell you about HDTV...

    HD PQ vs signal strength Above a certain bit error rate (BER) threshold, there is almost NO EFFECT on PQ from increasing the signal quality (which reduces the BER.) At or near that threshold, small changes in BER can have noticeable effects on PQ. In practice, this BER threshold VARIES...
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    I just applied and got approved for 2 conversion coupons

    A little advice... A. Let your relatives and friends (maybe elder) know about the coupons and encourage them to apply early if they need them. Flame wars... 1. A soft answer turns away wrath 2. It is wise to ignore an insult. 3. All people have opinions. Those opinions may or may...
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    CCTV leaving G3 soon

    Hmmm.... It looks like they're doing this just in time for.... the Beijing Olympics! $$$ talks :-) Especially Echostar's $$$.
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    Uniden SQ590 won't stay powered up.

    Power supply ASSUMING the power supply is the problem: I recommend "shotgunning" (replacing) all of the electrolytic caps in the power supply, especially if this is an old receiver. Old electrolytic caps do dry out and cause lots of problems. Use Panasonic FM series caps for <=50V, EB...
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    So how many hams view this forum??

    KD4SYX here... "Six with a y"
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    ENTER HERE TO WIN: Sadoun Meter giveaway!(Contest Over)

    Trick or treat? Tricky satellite or a treat of perfect reception? The meter helps het the treat with the minimum of tricks.:D
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    Wild feed hunting

    I'm having a time finding wild feeds. When i BS IA5, IA6, IA8, I pretty much don't find anything more. I have a very few feeds but I don't see the birds "light up" with feeds, say at 6 PM on the Pacific coast (USA). Do those of you who are old hands at feed hunting have other...
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    IA-5 97.0 W FTA reception near Seattle?

    I'm near seattle (a bit N of it) Get as much dish size as you can. I have a 36" dish and many channels on IA5 are a bit weak. I'm using a TechSAT Tracker LNBF (0.3 dB NF which is very quiet) Rain fade can be a problem especially in the winter. If you can swing it, get a 1.2m (48")...
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    ENTER HERE: Win a C Band Dish & LNB from SatelliteAV!(Contest Over)

    We can have double the channels, and more news We can get a free big satellite antenna--shipped herefor free--and get many more interesting channels to watch. What we have now with the small dish has more problems from rain, the bigger dish won't have so many problems. Some of the channels...
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    The WINNER of the Fortec 1.2 Meter Dish from Sadoun is...

    Congratulations! Now you can get those "fringe birds"--and betterr signal on G10!!:clap Good luck feed hunting too.:tux:
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    50,000 MEMBERS 24 Hour Contest!

    Useful site! Excellent info, guides and references for leagl FTA satellite and pay satellite setup and usage. A wide breadth of forums to satisfy many. That ICEBERG is a character--and knows his stuff! So does PSB--though HIS avatar will smack you in the face if you get too close!:D...