"David Thompson" wrote in
m:
I have a set of rabbit ears that was given to me several years ago for
the TV in the bedroom. The antenna cost about $15 in the 2002 catalog
(Radio Shack quit publishing a catalog soon thereafter).
I use a digital converter made under the RCA name and after the scan
virtually all of the pictures came out far better than the old analog
reception. However, almost all say "cannot get good reception
rescan". The sound tiles in and out. The bedroom is on the second
floor. I looked at amplified indoor antennas at Target and they sell
for $20 to $50. The non-amplified is $18 (only one they have).
Do most go to an amplified antenna or use an outside antenna? I just
took down my old big outside antenna 3 years ago as we have Comcast
cable in 3 rooms. Comcast cost $$$ for each set up and add more wires
to the house. I also assume the signal gets weaker the more I add.
Dave K4JRB
Rabbit ears aren't the best thing to receive DTV with. Most DTV
is broadcast in the UHF band. Go to
www.antennaweb.org to find a
list of the DTV stations in your area. You will also see what
channel they are transmitting on. (just because a TV station
identifies itself as 'channel 12' doesn't mean that it is transmitting
on the actual channel 12 frequency. There have been a lot of
shuffleing around of the frequency assignments as part of this
DTV conversion.). Antennaweb.org will also tell you the distance
and direction to each TV transmitter with a color code indicating
the type of antenna you will need.
Armed with this information, you can set up a proper antenna.
In my case, I went from rabbit ears (not very good) to a cheap
set top loop (not much better). Then I yanked the loop and cobbled
in a bowtie (getting better). Then, (I wish a took a picture) I
cobbled up a hand bent bowtie out of 12ga wire and attached it to
the top of the commercial bowtie. I finaly built a dual bowtie
setup that can be seen he
http://mysite.verizon.net/g_reeder/C...V_antenna.html
Works very well for me. YMMV.
There are other designs for DTV antennas on the internet. But
instead of just randomly trying antennas, got that info from
antennaweb.org so you know which dirrection to point the thing.