Good (small) indoor antenna for DTV reception?

[Phil Nelson]

Originally Posted by Dave S

Phil,

Check out: http://uhfhdtvantenna.blogspot.com/

Well, that does look cheap and easy. Pretty ugly to tack on the wall in my new "TV room," but maybe I could paint it to match the wall.

FWIW, here is the little antenna that I found in the attic. It had a little green connector labeled with KCPQ 13, a local station. Evidently a promotional item from the time when KCPQ introduced their new UFH channel. I see a little bowtie. Is the rest of it a VHF antenna, or a reflector of some sort? (I know nothing about antennas.

Phil

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by Phil Nelson

FWIW, here is the little antenna that I found in the attic. It had a little green connector labeled with KCPQ 13, a local station. Evidently a promotional item from the time when KCPQ introduced their new UHF channel. I see a little bowtie. Is the rest of it a VHF antenna, or a reflector of some sort? (I know nothing about antennas.

Phil

Looks like a Yagi antenna, made for 200MHz) pointing straight up into space. Yagis usually have their booms horizontal, pointing towards the station transmitter tower. The elements can be vertical or horizontal, to match what the transmitter antenna is doing. I don't see the bow-tie (this the right picture?). Also, it may be missing some parts, hard to tell. Hard to tell what the antenna lead in is connecting to.

[Phil Nelson]

There is a single bowtie behind the main staff (hard to see in that photo).

It is riveted to the second-to-top pair of crossbar elements and insulated from the rest of the elements by the blue plastic supports. The lead-in comes past the lower blue insulator, next to the yellow caution sticker, and goes to my DTV converter box.

In the attic, it was mounted horizontally (longest staff facing the ground, not the horizon). I just stuck it up this way because it's a small room and I have a short lead-in.

The bowtie is 14 inches long. The crossbars are 24 inches, and the main staff is 50 inches.

Phil Nelson