# Digital Antenna



## I'm Howard (Oct 13, 2010)

I have a very wealthy Friend, He got that way because He is CHEAP.

He won't pay for Cable, uses a Digital Antenna, but since He lives in the U.S I wondered if anyone has used one in Canada and how effective are they???


----------



## brad (May 22, 2009)

Check out http://www.digitalhome.ca/2011/05/over-the-air-ota-television/

If you live near the border you'll already be able to get many US stations, but starting this August all Canadian TV signals have to go digital so you'll get those as well.


----------



## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

I'm Howard said:


> He won't pay for Cable, uses a Digital Antenna, but since He lives in the U.S I wondered if anyone has used one in Canada and how effective are they???


I'm speaking from my experience in Ottawa (CBC is CH4 at 67mhz analogy
vestigial band transmission from the Camo Fortune tower, Ch 13 (CTV/CJOH)
is at 211Mhz. UHF channels go all the way up to 885Mhz.

I'm fed up with Bell Sat TV and their ripoff rates for basic "cable" stations,
so I just put the service "on Vacation" until the end of the summer
and bought a digital tv antenna from Durham Radio in Oshawa. 

Mine is the more compact version of their digital antenna (30" L x 19" w)
with 4 reflector groups (4 dipoles x 4) and 4 UHF style double dipoles
that are the active signal catchers. It comes with very mediocre preamp
and a coax and a a/c powered adapter.

Initially when I installed it in my living room above the flat screen TV, it
only picked up Ch13 well, and the lower channels (CBC 4 ; Global 6)
came in very noisy. Because the local stations are still transmitting the
analog transmission signals until the CRTC mandated Aug 31st date,
the signal coming requires a larger antenna or a YAGI, which are more
directional..but almost impossible to find these days..

I ended up extending the last active loop element with some thin 22 guage
speaker cord that I had lying around (6 feet long per dipole) 
Note: I only connected the wire to the last dipole set
.
That brought in the analog channels for Ch4 and Ch6 clearly.

Once the local stations go digital the antenna (should) be able to pull in those frequencies more efficiently.
http://www.interfacebus.com/digital-frequency-bands-channels.html


----------



## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

brad said:


> Check out http://www.digitalhome.ca/2011/05/over-the-air-ota-television/
> 
> If you live near the border you'll already be able to get many US stations, but starting this August all Canadian TV signals have to go digital so you'll get those as well.


That's what my digital antenna looks like.
However, it's not a magic "catch all" for everything out there. The digital
tuners on modern flat screens are crystal locked, so you can only receive
what is being broadcast on TERRESTRIAL tV transmission towers and
only the stations in your area.


----------



## brad (May 22, 2009)

From the reading I've done, it looks like external (i.e., roof) antennas are far more effective than indoor ones, but an external antenna on our house would never be approved by the Aesthetics Review Committee (my girlfriend).

I cancelled our cable subscription at the beginning of this year after realizing that we'd watched a grand total of 5 hours of television in all of 2010, meaning we were paying about $75/hour to watch it. But we still might consider having TV available in our guest bedroom so I've been looking into antennas (we don't actually own a TV, but I have a gizmo that provides a connection between the antenna cable and my computer so guests can watch TV on the computer).


----------



## hystat (Jun 18, 2010)

I'm excited to try it - more from a quality perspective.... I have a 40' tower, but I'm scared to climb to fix the rotor contacts on my 1980's channelmaster VHF UHF rig....
fear of heights.....who knew that was age related. I used to go up those things all the time.


----------



## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

hystat said:


> I'm excited to try it - more from a quality perspective.... I have a 40' tower, but I'm scared to climb to fix the rotor contacts on my 1980's channelmaster VHF UHF rig....
> fear of heights.....who knew that was age related. I used to go up those things all the time.


Well, so far, I'm not that impressed with mine. Ok it was a $69 special, 
and supposed to be an attic one. Orientation of this thing is a lot more
critical than the old traditional fringe/extreme fringe YAGI with a UHF
add-on. These are made in China..what more than I say. The preamp
is basically crap. You can depower the preamp and it makes no difference
in reception. I'm about 35Km or less away from the Camp Fortune 
transmission tower, so I expected a lot better reception..however at 
$69 it's a one time cost compared to the ripoff rates that Bell Sat charge
these days for the basic channels. 

As soon as my 2 yr contract is finished end of January, I'm kissing Bell/Rogers goodbye. All I see is the same crap programming/ads over and over several stations spred across Canada.

Fear of heights..I can understand. When I was a young lad of 17, I put
up several CB/business towers in the late 60s. 100ft ones. Guyed each
10ft triangular section and capped it off with a 10 ft whip antenna.

Back then I had muscles growing out of my ears and could pull up a 
10ft section, lift it straight up and set it in the section I was standing
on..no way I can do that today, or even get up a step stool for that matter.

As you get older, all of your muscle power starts to fade. Look at "ARNIE"..
he used to be the Terminator..now he's turning into a big flabby one.


----------



## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

brad said:


> From the reading I've done, it looks like external (i.e., roof) antennas are far more effective than indoor ones, but an external antenna on our house would never be approved by the Aesthetics Review Committee (my girlfriend).


With standard Tv reception..height is the most important criteria, and then
orientation of the antenna after that. Add a rotator and a 30db preamp
and you can pull in stations up to 100km away with 30ft tower and
sufficient preamp. S/N signal to noise ratio..is where it's at. Analog
TV carriers are AM and those require lots of power at the transmitter
and good antennas to pick them up. Rabbit ears may work in the city,
on analog, but they aren't going to work as well on digital transmission.



> But we still might consider having TV available in our guest bedroom so I've been looking into antennas (we don't actually own a TV, but I have a gizmo that provides a connection between the antenna cable and my computer so guests can watch TV on the computer).


I have a Viewsonic tv/monitor flat screen. It is one of the last ones available that had both a tv tuner (coax i/p) and a VGA connector for the computer as
well as individual PBy RCA jacks, composite video and L/R audio.
It works well with a small YAGI antenna at the trailer..pulls in Ottawa
CBC/CTV and Global 100km away.


----------



## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

"Digital antennas"..a bit of a misnomer.

I'm speaking from my experience in Ottawa (CBC is CH4 at 67mhz analogy
vestigial side band transmission from the Camp Fortune tower, 
Ch 13 (CTV/CJOH) is at 211Mhz. UHF channels go all the way 
up to 885Mhz.

I'm fed up with Bell Sat TV and their ripoff rates for basic "cable" stations,
so I just put the service "on Vacation" until the end of the summer
and bought a digital tv antenna from Durham Radio in Oshawa. 

Mine is the more compact version of their digital antenna (30" L x 19" w)
with 4 reflector groups (4 dipoles x 4) and 4 UHF style double dipoles
that are the active signal catchers. It comes with very mediocre preamp
and a coax and a a/c powered adapter.

Initially when I installed it in my living room above the flat screen TV, it
only picked up Ch13 well, and the lower channels (CBC 4 ; Global 6)
came in very noisy. Because the local stations are still transmitting the
analog transmission signals until the CRTC mandated Aug 31st date,
the signal coming requires a larger antenna or a YAGI, which are more
directional..but almost impossible to find these days..

I ended up extending the last active loop element with some thin 22 guage
speaker cord that I had lying around (6 feet long per dipole) 
Note: I only connected the wire to the last dipole set
.
That brought in the analog channels for Ch4 and Ch6 clearly.

Once the local stations go digital the antenna (should) be able to pull in those frequencies more efficiently.
http://www.interfacebus.com/digital-frequency-bands-channels.html[/url


----------



## Berubeland (Sep 6, 2009)

I have one. Mine is low and kind of wobbly on the pole so every once in a while i have to go to my deck and turn it a little. 

We pick up quite a few channels with it, and my hubby records a bunch of shows using the computer. So it's pretty good.By far the best thing about it though is that Rogers cable can kiss my ***. They should pay me to watch their commercials.


----------



## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

Berubeland said:


> . So it's pretty good. By far the best thing about it though is that *Rogers cable can kiss my ****. They should pay me to watch their commercials.


Well put "B". 

I'm fed up with first Rogers, then Bell sat TV ripping me off.

The last episode was a double billing charge by Bell, that raised my blood
pressure to the roof! I was quite "annoyed", and sorry that I had given
them permission to deduct the monthly rate from my CC. 

After they scr*wed me twice, once last fall ($150 charge twice!) and 
then again when I decided to downgrade from the free promotion HD receiver
to a standard receiver,to save some money, they tried to scr*w me by sending over a tech to swap out my receivers!..(as if, me being an electronic engineer, cant change over the coax and 3 RCA patch cords?), then they charged me $50 for that..(which they promised they would apply to my monthly programming)
.
When that didn't happen, and they tried to charge me another $75 for
an "early termination charge"...downgrading the receiver, I literally hit
the roof! 

I got on the phone and told them that since that was never
mentioned to me, I was going to take them to small claims court, and
never use Bell for anything again!

They backed off and said.."OK' mr....<lastname., we apologize for our
mistake of not informing you before you made the downgrade, from our
promotion, so we will cancell the $75 "early termination charge" and 
apply the $50 credit to your bill."

F%^^&ing B^%&^&*rds! These guys are ripoff artists! Once my 2yr
contract expires..I will never go back to Bell or Rogers again!

I will never allow any utility or anyone else for that matter to
deduct from my CC..I want to be in control of paying my bills, because
sooner or later..they "f%^k up!


----------



## hboy43 (May 10, 2009)

brad said:


> Check out http://www.digitalhome.ca/2011/05/over-the-air-ota-television/
> 
> If you live near the border you'll already be able to get many US stations, but starting this August all Canadian TV signals have to go digital so you'll get those as well.


I don't recognize that antenna design, but I have been out of ham radio for decades. How much gain does it have and what is it's frequency range?

The classic old time TV antenna referred to as a YAGI here is actually of a design known as a Log Periodic Dipole Array (LPDA). A Yagi (or in really old references Yagi-Uda IIRC, named after the Japanese inventors circa 1930 also IIRC) is a narrow bandwidth antenna entirely unsuitable for picking up the entire UHF or VHF range, but rather suited for one or two channels. The LPDA is a wide bandwidth design, but at any given frequency only about 4 elements are "active", so the design provides a pretty much uniform gain of about 10dB over a wide frequency range. By contrast, a Yagi can be quite large, say 20 elements, and the larger ones can get to the 20dB gain range. If you were aiming for a particular channel at a great distance, a channel specific Yagi would likely be the way to go.

Up until a couple years ago, we were OTA with a LPDA, preamp, 36 foot tower, rotator, and mast. We are about 150-160 km from Ottawa, elevation about 1200 feet. Channel 13 was usually viewable, though dodgy at times. Channel 4 did better, but being a lower frequency had better propagation and transmission line losses. The global and A channel transmitters out of Pembroke were solid. The biggest problem was keeping the preamps working. The lightning just fried them. The first one was at the top of the tower and lasted ... two days. The second one was also at the top of the tower and lasted some months. The third one was placed in the house at the TV and disconnected manually from the antenna at the first signs of rumbling. This of course degraded things by the loss in 50 feet of RG-6, not so much problem at channel 4, but very significant for CJOH on 13.

I have no idea how the digital signals will do this far out. I suspect not well, but I really don't know. Now that we have satellite, not much incentive to find out, expecially given I'd be just as happy to drop all the TVs out a window.

hboy43


----------



## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

hboy43 said:


> I don't recognize that antenna design, but I have been out of ham radio for decades. How much gain does it have and what is it's frequency range?


Don't know about the gain. it only came with assembly instructions with
an attached black box preamp that apparenty is powered at the tv RF
connector end through a 12 volt adapter. The Ch13 signal coming in
is no clearer with the adapter plugged in or disconnected.

As far as the design..it's a ganged 4 UHF style "bowtie' design, so it's
not that good with analog broadcast right now, as I'm getting ghosting
on CJoH. It may be a bit better once they go fully digital in September,
but even digital, there still is a carrier frequency and signal strength to
deal with from the Camp Fortune transmitter tower, so hopefully the
ghosting will be gone then. 




> I have no idea how the digital signals will do this far out. I suspect not well, but I really don't know. Now that we have satellite, not much incentive to find out, expecially given I'd be just as happy to drop all the TVs out a window. hboy43


Ya, I know what you mean. Satellite and cable are becoming ridiculously
more expensive each year. I'm still on the last few months of a Bell Tv
2 yr contract..and turned off the service for the summer months. After
my contract expires in January, I will never go back to them or Rogers again.


----------



## bill.k (Jan 31, 2011)

*tv*

Living in Oshawa, I have been using a digital 4 bay attenna for about 3 yrs now. It is about 20ft above my bungalow and I use a rotor to fine tune the signal. Rotor,cable and 10ft pole I bought of a local Oshawa guy for 50bucks (Kijji). I had to buy a "digital box" for 100 bucks. I mounted all that with another 10ft pole and a chimmey mounting kit from Durham Radio. All told about 300 bucks or less. I recieve local channels 5,9,11(hard to get),57 and 64 plus American channels (better programming than Canadian imo) 2-1,2-2,2-3,4,7,17-1,17-2,17-3,23,29-1,29-2,36(sometimes),44,49-1,49-2,53-1,53-2,53-3. Some channels can be difficult to recieve and if the weather is bad alot of the times I cannot recieve many of the american channels. I do miss cable tv for the Space channel and the home improvement stuff etc but I'll live. Check out the Over the air forums. Google OTV and you'll find lots of info.


----------



## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

bill.k said:


> I had to buy a "digital box" for 100 bucks. I mounted all that with another 10ft pole and a chimmey mounting kit from Durham Radio. All told about 300 bucks or less. Some channels can be difficult to recieve and if the weather is bad alot of the times I cannot recieve many of the american channels.


Why did you have to buy a digital box? If you have a flat screen, it should
already come with a NTSC (analog tuner + the ATSC (digital) tuner on the
RF "F"connector input. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATSC_tuner

Unless you wanted to go YpbPr or HDMi from the digital box to the set? 


I find that these 4 bay bow-tie designs are not as good as picking up
analog tv as the more conventional YAGi antennas, which had a better
directional gain (on a rotor) and had more collector/reflector elements.

These new designs seem to be just 4 bowtie antennas in parallel, (more for
UHF frequencies than VHF) and if the reception signal is poor, 
ganging 4 of them together is not going to improve the signal to noise ratio
that much compared to the old school YAGI. 

I have the Durham Radio smaller version and somewhat disappointed with
it, but at least it allowed me to suspend Bell TV service for the summer
months, when there isn't much on, except re-runs.


----------



## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

hboy43 said:


> , a channel specific Yagi would likely be the way to go.
> 
> The global and A channel transmitters out of Pembroke were solid. The biggest problem was keeping the preamps working. The lightning just fried them. The first one was at the top of the tower and lasted ... two days. The second one was also at the top of the tower and lasted some months. The third one was placed in the house at the TV and disconnected manually from the antenna at the first signs of rumbling. This of course degraded things by the loss in 50 feet of RG-6, not so much problem at channel 4, but very significant for CJOH on 13.


You should have been using the low loss RG-6, the kind they use for
sat Tv.
http://www.malcomwireless.com/wireless/store/productdetail.asp?productid=48759

I would never put a preamp at the mast, even if a suitable ground wire
was attached. Most of these preamps will not tolerate any induced
transients during a lightning storm..and there are lots of them.
What I've used is a special A/C power bar with transient protection
for both a/c and the coax inputs. It's made for rural use with TV towers. 
http://www.fruitridgetools.com/stor...temDetail.aspx?sfid=136763&c=7734&i=238086477



> I have no idea how the digital signals will do this far out. I suspect not well, but I really don't know. Now that we have satellite, not much incentive to find out, expecially given I'd be just as happy to drop all the TVs out a window. hboy43


Well that still remains to be seen, whether the local stations just use
the existing analog frequencies and superimpose a digital carrier onto
these frequency bands or go higher up in frequency. In Ottawa, there
isn't too much in the UHF band, so it's hard to tell, but something tells
me that the tv stations will want to do it as economically as possible
since the antenna array at the Camp Fortune transmitter is already
designed for those frequencies, so all they have to do is digitize the
signal microwaved into the transmitter site. 

I don't know about whether the sidebands will be the same as analog 
transmission though, as the analog scheme involves one AM
picture carrier sideband and a FM sound carrier. 
Certainly I would expect they are not going to require the full 6meg bandwith
on digital as on analog, since the pic and sound are synchronized on digital.


----------



## bill.k (Jan 31, 2011)

*tv*

I do have a flatscreen tv and only just over 3yrs old but it did not have the ATSC so i had to get the box!! I went to Toshiba's tech website to look for the specs on my tv. Some tv's have it some don't so if you need the ATSC better check before you purchase. I didn't!


----------



## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

bill.k said:


> I do have a flatscreen tv and only just over 3yrs old but it did not have the ATSC so i had to get the box!! I went to Toshiba's tech website to look for the specs on my tv. Some tv's have it some don't so if you need the ATSC better check before you purchase. I didn't!


Ok, sorry about my "chastising", Bill. I bought mine about 5 years ago (it
is a lesser known brand (Viewsonic, through Costco) and frankly, I must admit
I wasn't thinking ATSC back then either, because the CRTC requirements
(for local stations) to go digital..was not apparent back then. 

So in a sense, I was lucky that my 32" flat screen came with both the NTSC 
and ATSC tuners....
otherwise, as you mentioned, otherwise I would have to buy a conversion
black box for it as well. 

Now this is my opinion of course, but if somebody out there has the older
style TV and needs to buy a $100 conversion box. better to spend it
on the new style flat screens because now they all should come with
the digital ATSC tuner...and when the old TV finally bites the dust..the
conversion box is redundant.


----------



## trillian (Feb 3, 2011)

If you are handy, you can build your own antenna. My dad built me one and it's been the best antenna over any store bought one I've tried. I live in an apartment with a balcony, and on a good day, it picks up all the canadian and american networks. Majority of the time I have abc/nbc/cbc/ctv/fox/chch, etc On top of that, all the canadian networks stream some shows online, so anything I missed live, I can wait a few days and catch it online for free. Our public library also has a good selection of recent DVD's that I recently started using. So overall, my bill went from $135 to $54 per month by canceling cable tv.

I'd say if the majority of your tv watching is on a canadian/american network (I was watching CTV nearly 90% of the time), try OTA. If you really need the specialty channels (I miss having Space), then OTA won't be for you.


----------



## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

trillian said:


> If you are handy, you can build your own antenna. My dad built me one and it's been the best antenna over any store bought one I've tried.


Yes, you can do that..it's not exactly rocket science. 
Here is the"plugin" calculator for it.
http://www.hamuniverse.com/dipivcal.html
All you need is to find some hollow aluminum tubing or failing that #12 guage
copper wire and fashion it into a dipole. Then using a 75 ohm coaz balun
take that into the RF connector of your tv set.

The only thing that may require some work is getting the right orientation
to get all the stations you are interested in.


----------

