Al's Blog-o-Sphere

I decided not to build a high-gain UHF TV antenna. I looked into it and while it’s an interesting project and something I may still do, the materials would have cost me more than buying a new antenna, if I did it the way I want to do. That says something for the principle of cost reduction due to mass production.

This is what I ended up with. The top antenna, a Antennas Direct DB4, is pointed nearly south to pick up the Buffalo stations in the southern hills. The stations in Grand Island are only 12 miles away and come in with a rock-crushing signal no matter where you point the antenna. You might be able to get a null off the side if you needed to cut them out, but it would take some careful aiming.

The antenna below that, a multi-element corner-reflector yagi from Radio Shack, purchased in the 70’s, but never used outdoors, is aimed at Toronto. Specifically at the CN Tower. Almost every TV station in Toronto is located on the tower, or within a mile of it. That’s just about line-of-sight. I’m sure if they cut down every tree between my house and the escarpment, about a mile away, I could see the CN Tower from my roof. I know it can be seen from an overlook at a park in town on the edge of the escarpment.

Continue Reading…

One of the things I’m considering with the advent of Digital TV is improving my antenna situation. I’ve had a TV antenna on a rotator for many years inside my attic. It was more than adequate for my needs, and I could reliably get stations from Buffalo, Hamilton and Toronto with little effort.

But the new DTV signals are a little more demanding, at least so far. I get digital signals from all the Buffalo stations, but even when the antenna is aimed right at some of the stations, we on occasion have the picture drop out. DTV signals are all-or-nothing, there is no snow, there is just nothing unless it’s perfect.

So what should I do? The antenna in my attic is only a few feet lower than where one might be if I put it on my rooftop. It’s a VHF/UHF combination antenna of medium size, as big as I could get and still turn inside the attic crawlspace.

I’ve been researching this on the interwebs and combined with my knowledge of electronics and radio communications (35 years as an Amateur Radio Operator) I can weed out the misinformation. But it’s still not totally clear-cut. Continue Reading…

I’ve already talked here about the pros and cons of the switchover to DTV. Here’s another aspect of it I wasn’t fully aware of: Royalties are adding about $30 to the cost of your Digital-ready TV.

I won’t belabor the point here. Just click on the logo above to read all about it.

Well, it’s spring and a young man’s thoughts turn to…

building a PC, of course. Well, I’m not that young, but since I bought a new LCD TV and mounted it on my living room wall, it was the next logical step.

I’ve had a sound system tied into my TV watching since before “Home Theater” was a common term. My first DVR came in 1999, when I got a ReplayTV 2000. I only retired it a year ago when it’s power supply failed. I still have it, in case I want to repair it, but about that time, I got a satellite dish and got the DVR option along with that.

But, I haven’t been totally happy with that, plus with the switchover to DTV, and no way to record over-the-air, I’ve been seriously looking at HTPCs. Home Theater PCs are a computer with a tuner card to collect video and then display it, in real-time, or later via recording, on your TV. It’s a different breed of PC in some ways, with some special needs in the areas of cooling, sound levels and I/O devices. Continue Reading…