On Jun 13, 10:10*am, Richard Clark wrote:
On Sat, 13 Jun 2009 01:08:24 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:
Oh well, some more cable along with a UHF/
VHF splitter (combiner) and that big Winegard in the garage will
hopefully cure it.

By this little snippet of what was intended as an aside may, in
fact,
be your solution for VHF. *Given your predicament of
"code" (arbitrary
or otherwise), you can put the cable to work.

The solution is called a "Franklin Antenna." *It would be disguised
as
an antenna cable (or telephone cable, or power line, or other
innocuous wire) that trails up (to something innocuous), but never
connects (who is going to look? *and if they did, it could always
be a
dummy connection).

A Franklin antenna is a stacked, gain antenna that is very colinear
(hence the cable motif). *These are most often described on the Web
for home wi-fi or bluetooth applications, but with scaling you can
bring them back down into the TV VHF band. *A quick search
gives:http://www.para.org.ph/membersarticl...velopment%20of
%20Coll...
which on page 11 gives a pictorial representation (I can't say I
vouch
for the entire paper, but it is representative of the topic).

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

I hung the spectrum analyzer on the Winegard all channel antenna in
the rafters of the garage. The VHF channels are strong and free of
response 'bumps' (meaning no serious multipath) and the UHF may be
better than the squareshooter on the roof. Tomorrow I shoot a hole in
the stucco wall to get the new RG-6 coax (crazy guy at Torrance
Electronics sold me 100 ft for $9) pulled in to the splitter to feed
the computers and STB. It looks like it will be good.

G²