[NJARC] Digital TV

[Al Klase]

Rob,

Well not actually a converter, but Santa brought us a 21st Century TV.  
We're less than 10 miles from the Empire State Building but in behind a 
5-story school that I'm sure contains it's share of steel.  Primary 
reception is still Comcast via a non-HD STB. 

Even before the TV arrived I did a little checking of the one-the-air 
situation as I had a UHF spectrum analyzer sitting in the 3rd-floor 
museum/storage dump.  With a random 18" wire connected to the instrument 
I could observe the distinctive digital "Bart's heads" in the 600MHz 
neighborhood.  My understanding is that all the current HDTV broadcasts 
are on UHF.  I tried a set of rabbit ears with a UHF loop that was lying 
around.  Surprisingly, these work significantly worse than the random wire.

So, what you probably need is an outdoor UHF antenna.  You may already 
have one.  A rotator is probably in order down there in Hopewell so you 
can point at Philadelphia and NYC.

I ginned up a 4-bay bow tie kinda like this 
http://uhfhdtvantenna.blogspot.com/  The spectrum analyzer showed that 
it worked surprisingly well without any tweaking.  It's sitting in our 
living room window, but needs to be on the roof.  (Actual reception 
varies with street traffic.)

Al

Robert Flory wrote:
> Visit our web site - See http://www.njarc.org
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> Has anyone deployed a digital converter yet?
>  
> I'm going to get one for my RCA XL-100 set, which is getting to be an 
> antique.
>  
> How is your service?
>  
> Rob
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-- 
Al Klase - N3FRQ
Jersey City, NJ
http://www.skywaves.ar88.net/