Cheap antenna works well for zip 23608

Found this post via the HTPC forum Is that simply 2 pieces of wire, one pushed into the connector and the other soldered to the barrel and nothing more? Are the 2 pieces of wire twisted together or anything? Curious as I may toy around with it just for fun.

For the record, per online tools I get no channels here, made a couple DIY antenna's in the past and picked up some Spanish channels, but am always looking to see if there are cheap / free antennas I could try to see if I pick anything up.

Is this it?:

sdowney717 said:

I meant to post here but I posted there by accident.
I get all the channels working well except for 4 and 13 which is VHF.

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Works well except for the channels it doesn't. That dipole is probably resonant somewhere in the UHF band. You might consider adding a second set of wires cut for somewhere in the VHF band, maybe about 30". This just shows if you live in a place with strong signals and multipath is not an issue then a large antenna is not necessary.

abcdefghi said:

Found this post via the HTPC forum Is that simply 2 pieces of wire, one pushed into the connector and the other soldered to the barrel and nothing more? Are the 2 pieces of wire twisted together or anything? Curious as I may toy around with it just for fun.

For the record, per online tools I get no channels here, made a couple DIY antenna's in the past and picked up some Spanish channels, but am always looking to see if there are cheap / free antennas I could try to see if I pick anything up.

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It doesn't sound like any simple antenna is going to work for you. How about posting your TV Fool report?

my zipcode is 23608.
I have a roof antenna running to two HTPC and have the signal split 4 ways already.
So I have another PC I put a tuner into and wanted to see how well a plain wire worked hooked to coax, which worked real well, actually I am amazed it works so well.

One wire is shoved into the hole, the other soldered to barrel or wrapped. I have some heat shrink to help hold it together. The window faces south where the stations are located.
Just my own design.

abcdefghi said:

Found this post via the HTPC forum Is that simply 2 pieces of wire, one pushed into the connector and the other soldered to the barrel and nothing more? Are the 2 pieces of wire twisted together or anything? Curious as I may toy around with it just for fun.

For the record, per online tools I get no channels here, made a couple DIY antenna's in the past and picked up some Spanish channels, but am always looking to see if there are cheap / free antennas I could try to see if I pick anything up.

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Just 2 pieces of wire, not twisted. I think i did solder the ends. I think the wire is 16 gauge.
After the 90 degree bend they are about 5 inches long. from the barrel connector end to the the 90 * is about two inches.

To fit into the small hole of the barrel connector you may need to thin the wire end.

This is a second story window facing south where the broadcast comes from.

RG6 Coax from antenna to the PC is about 20 feet

Calaveras said:

It doesn't sound like any simple antenna is going to work for you. How about posting your TV Fool report?

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Correct, but I like to mess around with things just to see what results if any I get. Here is a link to the TV Fool report:

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&itemid=29&q=id=f1f06cc3f48f6d

Hopefully the link works OK, I copied from my phone as the site won't load for some reason on my laptop.

sdowney717 said:

I get
10.1 10.2
15.1 15.2 15.3
33.1 33.2 33.2
43.1
3.1 3.2
49.1 - 49.6
27.1 27.2
21.1 - 21.6


I dont get 13.1 - 13.3 very well
I dont get 4.1 at all.

The other channels in that list I dont get, some are coming from Richmond which is far way.
The stations I get all come from south of me.
channel 17.1 17.2 are duplicate of 10.1 10.2 , as are some of the others duplicates of other networks.

Another poster said I could add a pair of longer wires to get 13.1 - 13.3 working better which is VHF.

I have a big antenna on the roof, and the little antenna gets every channel the roof antenna gets except for 13.1 - 13.3 and 4.1

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Overall, I would say your results with that antenna are pretty decent. The noise margin values are relatively high for most of your stations, so it obviously doesn't take much to receive those. But if you're like me, I try to get stations with noise margins (NM on the TV Fool chart), in negative territory. I use the monstrous XG91 antenna as you can see in my avatar. It gets a station with a NM value of -17.8 where I live. So those Richmond stations would not be out of the question for you if you went big.

Andrew K said:

Overall, I would say your results with that antenna are pretty decent. The noise margin values are relatively high for most of your stations, so it obviously doesn't take much to receive those. But if you're like me, I try to get stations with noise margins (NM on the TV Fool chart), in negative territory. I use the monstrous XG91 antenna as you can see in my avatar. It gets a station with a NM value of -17.8 where I live. So those Richmond stations would not be out of the question for you if you went big.

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It does work pretty good considering it is slightly crooked and so small.
I decided to try it when i noticed channel 10.1 coming in with just a coax cable connected to the tuner card and I held the end up to the window.

Maybe the roof antenna could get them. I have it on a 10 foot pole attached to chimney on a 2 story home. And I have a rotator.
For me most of these are duplicates of the big networks. Maybe Richmond PBS might have some additional content.

We use Netflix and Amazon Prime and OTA with WMC to view and record. I have two WMC PC's one with two tuner cards, the other with one tuner card.
We dropped sat TV years ago and never missed it. Never had cable TV.

I think daytime OTA TV is mostly a wasteland of content I never want to watch.

sdowney717 said:

I think daytime OTA TV is mostly a wasteland of content I never want to watch.

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The TV content changes quite a bit from daytime to after work. It goes from stay-at-home mother targeting, unemployed couch potato-centric, ghetto trashy programs to a bit more refined programs. The only shows I find myself watching during daytime when I'm home from work are The Price is Right and Let's Make a Deal.