On November 25, 2009 at 10:47, Nueatit said...
Was looking at upgrading my elderly mom's HD tv (minus tuner) to digital and placed old rabbit ears connected to a digital HD set top box in south facing bay window ground floor, all T.O. channels came in strong and even chn 23.
Mounted a wall mounted pipe to reach above roof, added a fancy amplified gain "yagi" with built-in rotator, rabbit ears worked better, lost two T.O. channels and chn 23.
Checked design of this antenna, basic low band folded dipoles, high band fold open dipole plus gain ampilfier, directors are plastic and do nothing, no reflector and no f/b ratio effect.
In my opinion stay away from these antennas, with descriptions such as "MOTORIZED VHF UHF OUTDOOR HDTV HD ROTOR TV HDTV ANTENNA selling for $48 or so on various mass selling sites.
Will install a 4-bay bow tie antenna and see how it works.
Amplifiers don't help the actual antenna, the antenna has what it has, there is no ability to get more then that. Where an amplifier helps is to compensate for line loses. For example the antenna is on the south side of the house on the roof, the cable comes down, goes along the side and in beside a window to the TV in the basement on the North side of the house. The cable has a 4dB loss along it's length. You put a 3dB amplifier half way along, so from the antenna to the amplifier there is a 2dB loss, and from the amplfier to the TV there is a 2dB loss, you put another 3dB amplifier right before a splitter that splits the signal between the TV and VCR, which again costs 2db. Now with the 2 amplifiers you suffer only a 2db loss from antenna to TV, rather then a 6dB loss. 2dB loss and you still get 4 bars, a 5dB loss and you get a signal to weak message from the digital tuner.
