Front-to-back ratio for UHF antenna
Hello:
I have been trying to find the answer to my question on the front-to- back ratio on UHF antennas, and so far have been unsuccessful. I think I understand what the front-to-back ratio is, but the specs on my Winegard PR-8800 (8 bay bowtie) show negative front-to-back ratios (-9 dB @ ch 14; -17 dB @ ch 32; -11 dB @ ch 50; -9 dB @ ch 69). The "dB over reference dipole" is: 10.7 dB @ ch 14; 12 dB @ ch 32; 11 dB @ ch 50; 12.5 dB @ ch 69. How can the front-to-back ratio be negative, and is this good or bad? I am assuming this could be bad in my case as I would like the signal at the back of the antenna to be minimal. I am currently trying to improve our HDTV reception. I currently have the PR-8800 antenna in our attic hooked to a Radio Shack 30 dB mast amp. This antenna works very well overall. But from time to time, on a couple channels the HD signal strength will drop all the way down, enough to drop the signal or cause break-up. I've been considering a Winegard HD9095P or PR9032 to use in conjunction with the PR-8800 since they have a higher gain than the PR-8800, then rotate the PR-8800 the other way to receive some different stations. I really appreciate the help and feedback on this!! Thanks, -- Chris |
Front-to-back ratio for UHF antenna
In alt.tv.tech.hdtv Bert Hyman wrote:
| (szilagyic) wrote in | ups.com: | | I think I understand what the front-to-back ratio is, but the specs | on my Winegard PR-8800 (8 bay bowtie) show negative front-to-back | ratios (-9 dB @ ch 14; -17 dB @ ch 32; -11 dB @ ch 50; -9 dB @ ch | 69). The "dB over reference dipole" is: 10.7 dB @ ch 14; 12 dB @ | ch 32; 11 dB @ ch 50; 12.5 dB @ ch 69. How can the front-to-back | ratio be negative, and is this good or bad? I am assuming this | could be bad in my case as I would like the signal at the back of | the antenna to be minimal. | | Showing the F/B ratio as negative is non-standard, but I -guess | they're just trying to emphasize that the signal received off the | back of the antenna is less than that received from the direction | it's pointing. Looks like negative DB is used for any direction to indicate how much less the signal will be relative to the main lobe. Whether side or back or any other direction, the circles are labeled with negative DB, more negative as you move to the inner circles. See: http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ANTENNAS/cm4228.html -- |---------------------------------------/----------------------------------| | Phil Howard KA9WGN (ka9wgn.ham.org) / Do not send to the address below | | first name lower case at ipal.net / | |------------------------------------/-------------------------------------| |
Front-to-back ratio for UHF antenna
On Jul 2, 10:49 am, szilagyic wrote:
Hello: I have been trying to find the answer to my question on the front- to- back ratio on UHF antennas, and so far have been unsuccessful. I think I understand what the front-to-back ratio is, but the specs on my Winegard PR-8800 (8 bay bowtie) show negative front-to-back ratios (-9 dB @ ch 14; -17 dB @ ch 32; -11 dB @ ch 50; -9 dB @ ch 69). The "dB over reference dipole" is: 10.7 dB @ ch 14; 12 dB @ ch 32; 11 dB @ ch 50; 12.5 dB @ ch 69. How can the front-to-back ratio be negative, and is this good or bad? I am assuming this could be bad in my case as I would like the signal at the back of the antenna to be minimal. I am currently trying to improve our HDTV reception. I currently have the PR-8800 antenna in our attic hooked to a Radio Shack 30 dB mast amp. This antenna works very well overall. But from time to time, on a couple channels the HD signal strength will drop all the way down, enough to drop the signal or cause break-up. I've been considering a Winegard HD9095P or PR9032 to use in conjunction with the PR-8800 since they have a higher gain than the PR-8800, then rotate the PR-8800 the other way to receive some different stations. I really appreciate the help and feedback on this!! Thanks, -- Chris 30 dB is quite a bit of gain on top of a decent gain antenna. If you're _far_ from the stations OR they're still running reduced power it can be justified but as a point of reference, I use a Winegard squareshooter (4-5 dB gain), no amplifier split 4 ways with 100' of RG-6 35 miles from the LA transmitters. SIgnal strength reported as 80% on the HDTV Wonders. I wonder if perhaps you're almost overloading either the preamp or the front-end of the TV. As Bert mentioned, the negative front-to-back number just referencing the front gain of the antenna. Again, I wouldn't use so 'much' preamp unless I was 50+ miles from the nearest station. GG |
Front-to-back ratio for UHF antenna
On Mon, 02 Jul 2007 10:49:39 -0700, szilagyic
wrote: Hello: I have been trying to find the answer to my question on the front-to- back ratio on UHF antennas, and so far have been unsuccessful. I think I understand what the front-to-back ratio is, but the specs on my Winegard PR-8800 (8 bay bowtie) show negative front-to-back ratios (-9 dB @ ch 14; -17 dB @ ch 32; -11 dB @ ch 50; -9 dB @ ch 69). The "dB over reference dipole" is: 10.7 dB @ ch 14; 12 dB @ ch 32; 11 dB @ ch 50; 12.5 dB @ ch 69. How can the front-to-back ratio be negative, and is this good or bad? I am assuming this could be bad in my case as I would like the signal at the back of the antenna to be minimal. I am currently trying to improve our HDTV reception. I currently have the PR-8800 antenna in our attic hooked to a Radio Shack 30 dB mast amp. This antenna works very well overall. But from time to time, on a couple channels the HD signal strength will drop all the way down, enough to drop the signal or cause break-up. I've been considering a Winegard HD9095P or PR9032 to use in conjunction with the PR-8800 since they have a higher gain than the PR-8800, then rotate the PR-8800 the other way to receive some different stations. I really appreciate the help and feedback on this!! Thanks, Get that antenna OUT of your attic. Put it outside on your roof, no more than 12 feet mast. All your problems will go away. |
Front-to-back ratio for UHF antenna
szilagyic wrote:
Hello: I have been trying to find the answer to my question on the front-to- back ratio on UHF antennas, and so far have been unsuccessful. I think I understand what the front-to-back ratio is, but the specs on my Winegard PR-8800 (8 bay bowtie) show negative front-to-back ratios (-9 dB @ ch 14; -17 dB @ ch 32; -11 dB @ ch 50; -9 dB @ ch 69). The "dB over reference dipole" is: 10.7 dB @ ch 14; 12 dB @ ch 32; 11 dB @ ch 50; 12.5 dB @ ch 69. How can the front-to-back ratio be negative, and is this good or bad? I am assuming this could be bad in my case as I would like the signal at the back of the antenna to be minimal. I am currently trying to improve our HDTV reception. I currently have the PR-8800 antenna in our attic hooked to a Radio Shack 30 dB mast amp. This antenna works very well overall. But from time to time, on a couple channels the HD signal strength will drop all the way down, enough to drop the signal or cause break-up. I've been considering a Winegard HD9095P or PR9032 to use in conjunction with the PR-8800 since they have a higher gain than the PR-8800, then rotate the PR-8800 the other way to receive some different stations. I really appreciate the help and feedback on this!! Thanks, -- Chris 1) If you can, you'd be better off if you can get it out of the attic, as UHF doesn't like roofing and other stuff between your antenna and the signal source. (I think this has already been mentioned). Getting it up in the air above the roof may help a bit, but it is always worth trying various heights to find the "sweet spot". Antenna reception isn't always quite like the theories would indicate... 2) UHF is also really susceptible to reflection. If you recieve the direct signal and a reflected signal at the same time (the reflected signal typically will be out of phase and tend to reduce the direct signal, or if severe, look like ghosts on analog) you will have difficulties during reception of the reflection. One place I lived had a periodic loss of signal (didn't actually go away, just got messy/snowy, it was in the analog days). Signal would get bad from a half to a couple of seconds, and had an odd period. Certain times of day it was every couple of minutes, other times it took hours to show up. After beating around for a long time, discovered the problem seemed to be related to reflection off of jets taking off from an airport partway between us and the transmitter site... In messing about with the antenna, found an "off axis" reflection off of something on a hill offside to us (antenna was swung about 30 degrees to one side off of direct line of sight) and, though the signal was a bit lower overall, the periodic fading disappeared completely.... 3) Radio Shack amplifiers tend to be way over-hyped. They rarely meet the specs they claim, and tend to be somewhat unstable over time. Better to get a commercial TV brand than Radio Shack, if you've a chouce. If you're into home brew, you could use one of the mini-circuits monolithic amplifiers and know you have decent gain. They're pretty easy to work with, even at UHF frequencies, and stable to boot. If you're really getting 30db from the Radio Shack amp, look at the coax between your antenna and the receiver. Good quality coax can help keep the signal you've taken so much care to obtain. 4) just for grins, try the exsisting system outside the attic without the amplifier and see if you have a decent level of signal. You may be surprised to see it isn't as bad as you think. As one person suggested, you may actually have too much gain in the amplifier (though with RS, you're actual gain may change with temperature and seemingly even the phase of the moon...) Not familiar with the model of antenna you have, though the "typical" double bow tie (with 4 copies in your case)are mounted in front of a mesh screen. In your case it looks like open elements as a reflector. Sometimes you can get a better front to back ratio by adding a solid reflector in place of the mesh/reflector rods. I would think in your case it would help, and wouldn't take much trouble to try. Front to back ratio is just that, the ratio of signal between what is received from the front and the back of the antenna. A front to back ratio of 3db means you have twice the amount recieved from the front than the back. A high front to back means you will be essentially "blocking" potential interference from the back side of the antenna by the ratio indicated. 10 or 12 db of forward gain means your recieved signal is about 10 to 16 times as strong as a dipole hanging in the air. If you interpret the negative number as the amount the signal is down from the forward gain, the numbers given (9 to 17db) would indicate reception off the back side would be somewhere near a dipole in open space (1 db net) to -5db (about 1/3 of the signal of a dipole) pickup from the back. I have used aluminum sheet (tested prior with aluminum foil) tied to the mesh to completely block reception from the back (a near infinite front to back ratio) in an extreme case where I had significant multipath reflections coming in from the back. It really cleaned things up. In your case you may not need to go to this rather severe step. Looking at alternate antennas, the two you've indicated would likely help, but you're only getting about 3db better signal (double the power). They do have narrower beamwidth, so if your interference is coming off axis, you may be able to use one of these to solve your problem. Personally, I tend to like this type of antenna over the big flat looking bowties. Especially out in the weather, there's only a single connection to worry about, rather than the phasing array connecting the 8 separate bow ties of the one you have now. Another alternative to higher gain antennas would be if you have all of your HDTV channels in the same relative band. Antennas like you've looked at so far are compromises because they are set up for the entire UHF channel set. If you have a relatively small set of close by channels, you could get an antenna that is better matched to that set. (I haven't looked in about 10 or 12 years, but you used to be able to purchase antennas optimized for about a 10 channel spread, and they had great gain and front to back specs.) Hope you're not in an antenna restricted neighborhood, they can be the pits to deal with. If you've currently got the bow tie in the attic due to your neighborhood, look around and see if there's a place at one end of the attic where you can pretty much shoot through a single wall. Replacing the wallboard/t1-11/sheathing/siding with a plastic panel that is about the size of the antenna reflector area could help increase the signal strength without replacing the antenna. Of course, before getting this drastic, I'd mount it temporarily outside of the attic at that location first to see if it actually helps... Good luck! --Rick AH7H |
Front-to-back ratio for UHF antenna
"Rick Frazier" wrote in message ... szilagyic wrote: Hello: I have been trying to find the answer to my question on the front-to- back ratio on UHF antennas, and so far have been unsuccessful. I think I understand what the front-to-back ratio is, but the specs on my Winegard PR-8800 (8 bay bowtie) show negative front-to-back ratios (-9 dB @ ch 14; -17 dB @ ch 32; -11 dB @ ch 50; -9 dB @ ch 69). The "dB over reference dipole" is: 10.7 dB @ ch 14; 12 dB @ ch 32; 11 dB @ ch 50; 12.5 dB @ ch 69. How can the front-to-back ratio be negative, and is this good or bad? I am assuming this could be bad in my case as I would like the signal at the back of the antenna to be minimal. I am currently trying to improve our HDTV reception. I currently have the PR-8800 antenna in our attic hooked to a Radio Shack 30 dB mast amp. This antenna works very well overall. But from time to time, on a couple channels the HD signal strength will drop all the way down, enough to drop the signal or cause break-up. I've been considering a Winegard HD9095P or PR9032 to use in conjunction with the PR-8800 since they have a higher gain than the PR-8800, then rotate the PR-8800 the other way to receive some different stations. I really appreciate the help and feedback on this!! Thanks, -- Chris 1) If you can, you'd be better off if you can get it out of the attic, as UHF doesn't like roofing and other stuff between your antenna and the signal source. (I think this has already been mentioned). Getting it up in the air above the roof may help a bit, but it is always worth trying various heights to find the "sweet spot". Antenna reception isn't always quite like the theories would indicate... 2) UHF is also really susceptible to reflection. If you recieve the direct signal and a reflected signal at the same time (the reflected signal typically will be out of phase and tend to reduce the direct signal, or if severe, look like ghosts on analog) you will have difficulties during reception of the reflection. One place I lived had a periodic loss of signal (didn't actually go away, just got messy/snowy, it was in the analog days). Signal would get bad from a half to a couple of seconds, and had an odd period. Certain times of day it was every couple of minutes, other times it took hours to show up. After beating around for a long time, discovered the problem seemed to be related to reflection off of jets taking off from an airport partway between us and the transmitter site... In messing about with the antenna, found an "off axis" reflection off of something on a hill offside to us (antenna was swung about 30 degrees to one side off of direct line of sight) and, though the signal was a bit lower overall, the periodic fading disappeared completely.... 3) Radio Shack amplifiers tend to be way over-hyped. They rarely meet the specs they claim, and tend to be somewhat unstable over time. Better to get a commercial TV brand than Radio Shack, if you've a chouce. If you're into home brew, you could use one of the mini-circuits monolithic amplifiers and know you have decent gain. They're pretty easy to work with, even at UHF frequencies, and stable to boot. If you're really getting 30db from the Radio Shack amp, look at the coax between your antenna and the receiver. Good quality coax can help keep the signal you've taken so much care to obtain. 4) just for grins, try the exsisting system outside the attic without the amplifier and see if you have a decent level of signal. You may be surprised to see it isn't as bad as you think. As one person suggested, you may actually have too much gain in the amplifier (though with RS, you're actual gain may change with temperature and seemingly even the phase of the moon...) Not familiar with the model of antenna you have, though the "typical" double bow tie (with 4 copies in your case)are mounted in front of a mesh screen. In your case it looks like open elements as a reflector. Sometimes you can get a better front to back ratio by adding a solid reflector in place of the mesh/reflector rods. I would think in your case it would help, and wouldn't take much trouble to try. Front to back ratio is just that, the ratio of signal between what is received from the front and the back of the antenna. A front to back ratio of 3db means you have twice the amount recieved from the front than the back. A high front to back means you will be essentially "blocking" potential interference from the back side of the antenna by the ratio indicated. 10 or 12 db of forward gain means your recieved signal is about 10 to 16 times as strong as a dipole hanging in the air. If you interpret the negative number as the amount the signal is down from the forward gain, the numbers given (9 to 17db) would indicate reception off the back side would be somewhere near a dipole in open space (1 db net) to -5db (about 1/3 of the signal of a dipole) pickup from the back. I have used aluminum sheet (tested prior with aluminum foil) tied to the mesh to completely block reception from the back (a near infinite front to back ratio) in an extreme case where I had significant multipath reflections coming in from the back. It really cleaned things up. In your case you may not need to go to this rather severe step. Looking at alternate antennas, the two you've indicated would likely help, but you're only getting about 3db better signal (double the power). They do have narrower beamwidth, so if your interference is coming off axis, you may be able to use one of these to solve your problem. Personally, I tend to like this type of antenna over the big flat looking bowties. Especially out in the weather, there's only a single connection to worry about, rather than the phasing array connecting the 8 separate bow ties of the one you have now. Another alternative to higher gain antennas would be if you have all of your HDTV channels in the same relative band. Antennas like you've looked at so far are compromises because they are set up for the entire UHF channel set. If you have a relatively small set of close by channels, you could get an antenna that is better matched to that set. (I haven't looked in about 10 or 12 years, but you used to be able to purchase antennas optimized for about a 10 channel spread, and they had great gain and front to back specs.) Hope you're not in an antenna restricted neighborhood, they can be the pits to deal with. If you've currently got the bow tie in the attic due to your neighborhood, look around and see if there's a place at one end of the attic where you can pretty much shoot through a single wall. Replacing the wallboard/t1-11/sheathing/siding with a plastic panel that is about the size of the antenna reflector area could help increase the signal strength without replacing the antenna. Of course, before getting this drastic, I'd mount it temporarily outside of the attic at that location first to see if it actually helps... Good luck! --Rick AH7H Gee, I want an isotropic antenna! After all, it's the standard for comparison. (If you don't recognize this as an attempt at humor, then God bless you.) |
Front-to-back ratio for UHF antenna
Hi Chris
Much has already been said about your problem. I just have a few more points to add.. - One of the initial "reasons" for masthead preamps was to reduce/remove the loss of the coax run. Quoting the preamp gain in this case is useful but in reality it is much more important to have a preamp device that is low noise or will give you a better signal to noise ratio at low signal levels. There is actually a hard limit based on Boltzmanns constant and the system bandwidth that is the thermal noise on Earth. (ie you can use it mathematically to check your system) If it is spec'd look for the lowest preamp noise figure (NF). Unfortunately low NF tends to go hand in hand with not so good large (undesired) signal performance. If however you don't have other strong signals around you it works well. Some bad preamp designs even "take off" producing their own interference and contributing towards the problem. - One of the killers for low level signal reception is that the local noise near your antenna varies above the "constant" mentioned above. Although rare on UHF, electrical interfering sources can "raise the noise floor" such that the s/n of the wanted signal gets smaller. Ways around this include a good antenna install with very good directivity to the signal source. In some cases you can use the antenna nulls and polarization to reduce interfering signal and of course finding and fixing the interfering source. Your "couple of channels" dropping out could be a local noise problem or equally a propagation/bending/reflection issue. (Reflection problems tend to be short lived though) It may be worth logging the failures to see if they fit a pattern. What frequency the channels are on can also help in the hunt. (eg someone using a 900MHz cordless phone while your weak signal is at the top of the UHF band...) It might be worthwhile finding out what channels the distant stations are on, then purchasing an antenna more centered on that frequency. As a general rule high gain is inverse to bandwidth so for the same amount of metal/size an antenna made to cover (say) 5 channels may have 5dB more forward gain and better f/b performance than a wide band one. A narrower band antenna may also have better undesirable lobes so a local noise problem may be helped. I realize that you are more after a commercially available system but your own design/build may even be an option. In a perfect world an antenna would receive nothing from everywhere except the desired direction! Unfortunately most radiation patterns look like wildflowers on steroids! Wide band antennas are especially horrible. The front to back ratio is not the only important figure. Some antennas have lobes maybe 30 degrees off the back that are only a few dB down from a dipole! Hope this helps. Cheers Bob W5/VK2YQA szilagyic wrote: Hello: I have been trying to find the answer to my question on the front-to- back ratio on UHF antennas, and so far have been unsuccessful. ... I really appreciate the help and feedback on this!! |
Front-to-back ratio for UHF antenna
snip
10 or 12 db of forward gain means your recieved signal is about 10 to 16 times as strong as a dipole hanging in the air. If you interpret the negative number as the amount the signal is down from the forward gain, the numbers given (9 to 17db) would indicate reception off the back side would be somewhere near a dipole in open space (1 db net) to -5db (about 1/3 of the signal of a dipole) pickup from the back. I have used aluminum sheet (tested prior with aluminum foil) tied to the mesh to completely block reception from the back (a near infinite front to back ratio) in an extreme case where I had significant multipath reflections coming in from the back. It really cleaned things up. In your case you may not need to go to this rather severe step. snip Good luck! --Rick AH7H 10 or 12db of forward gain goes NOT equal 10 "times" the received signal strength. |
Front-to-back ratio for UHF antenna
"Bishoop" wrote in message ... snip 10 or 12 db of forward gain means your recieved signal is about 10 to 16 times as strong as a dipole hanging in the air. If you interpret the negative number as the amount the signal is down from the forward gain, the numbers given (9 to 17db) would indicate reception off the back side would be somewhere near a dipole in open space (1 db net) to -5db (about 1/3 of the signal of a dipole) pickup from the back. I have used aluminum sheet (tested prior with aluminum foil) tied to the mesh to completely block reception from the back (a near infinite front to back ratio) in an extreme case where I had significant multipath reflections coming in from the back. It really cleaned things up. In your case you may not need to go to this rather severe step. snip Good luck! --Rick AH7H 10 or 12db of forward gain goes NOT equal 10 "times" the received signal strength. Then what do you think it is equal to ? |
Front-to-back ratio for UHF antenna
Bishoop wrote:
snip 10 or 12 db of forward gain means your recieved signal is about 10 to 16 times as strong as a dipole hanging in the air. If you interpret the negative number as the amount the signal is down from the forward gain, the numbers given (9 to 17db) would indicate reception off the back side would be somewhere near a dipole in open space (1 db net) to -5db (about 1/3 of the signal of a dipole) pickup from the back. I have used aluminum sheet (tested prior with aluminum foil) tied to the mesh to completely block reception from the back (a near infinite front to back ratio) in an extreme case where I had significant multipath reflections coming in from the back. It really cleaned things up. In your case you may not need to go to this rather severe step. snip Good luck! --Rick AH7H 10 or 12db of forward gain goes NOT equal 10 "times" the received signal strength. OK, so it's semantics. a 3 3db positive change is a doubling of "power", which I relate to signal strength on reception, hence my use of the term above. 3db ix 2x power 6db is 4x power 9db is 8x power 10db is essentially 10x power.... (and a generally accepted approximation). Given the nebulous measurement methods used, stating that 10-12db of an antenna gain is nearly the same isn't that far off, assuming the stated 10-12db is even remotely accurate to begin with.... --Rick AH7H |
Front-to-back ratio for UHF antenna
In article t,
"Ralph Mowery" wrote: "Bishoop" wrote in message (snip) 10 or 12db of forward gain goes NOT equal 10 "times" the received signal strength. Then what do you think it is equal to ? Well, 10dB of gain is a 10x increase in absolute signal, but 12dB of gain would be about 16x the signal. dB = 10 * log(S1/S2) where S1 and S2 are the absolute strengths of two signals you're finding the dB of difference between. The regular absolute-value scale and logarithmic scale of dB "cross" at the factor of 10; so 10dB = 10x, but that's the only place that's true (at least, I think it is, off the top of my head). -Kadin. |
Front-to-back ratio for UHF antenna
On Jul 3, 5:27 pm, Bob Bob wrote:
Hi Chris Much has already been said about your problem. I just have a few more points to add.. - One of the initial "reasons" for masthead preamps was to reduce/remove the loss of the coax run. Quoting the preamp gain in this case is useful but in reality it is much more important to have a preamp device that is low noise or will give you a better signal to noise ratio at low signal levels. There is actually a hard limit based on Boltzmanns constant and the system bandwidth that is the thermal noise on Earth. (ie you can use it mathematically to check your system) If it is spec'd look for the lowest preamp noise figure (NF). Unfortunately low NF tends to go hand in hand with not so good large (undesired) signal performance. If however you don't have other strong signals around you it works well. Some bad preamp designs even "take off" producing their own interference and contributing towards the problem. - One of the killers for low level signal reception is that the local noise near your antenna varies above the "constant" mentioned above. Although rare onUHF, electrical interfering sources can "raise the noise floor" such that the s/n of the wanted signal gets smaller. Ways around this include a good antenna install with very good directivity to the signal source. In some cases you can use the antenna nulls and polarization to reduce interfering signal and of course finding and fixing the interfering source. Your "couple of channels" dropping out could be a local noise problem or equally a propagation/bending/reflection issue. (Reflection problems tend to be short lived though) It may be worth logging the failures to see if they fit a pattern. What frequency the channels are on can also help in the hunt. (eg someone using a 900MHz cordless phone while your weak signal is at the top of theUHFband...) It might be worthwhile finding out what channels the distant stations are on, then purchasing an antenna more centered on that frequency. As a general rule high gain is inverse to bandwidth so for the same amount of metal/size an antenna made to cover (say) 5 channels may have 5dB more forward gain and better f/b performance than a wide band one. A narrower band antenna may also have better undesirable lobes so a local noise problem may be helped. I realize that you are more after a commercially available system but your own design/build may even be an option. In a perfect world an antenna would receive nothing from everywhere except the desired direction! Unfortunately most radiation patterns look like wildflowers on steroids! Wide band antennas are especially horrible. The front to back ratio is not the only important figure. Some antennas have lobes maybe 30 degrees off the back that are only a few dB down from a dipole! Hope this helps. Cheers Bob W5/VK2YQA szilagyic wrote: Hello: I have been trying to find the answer to my question on the front-to- back ratio onUHFantennas, and so far have been unsuccessful. .. I really appreciate the help and feedback on this!! Thank you very much for the detailed information. All of these ideas are VERY helpful, and I will be trying some of these very soon. I have (for reasons that you mentioned) been thinking about replacing the preamp (Radio Shack 30 dB). The manual for it doesn't give the specs for noise, or anything useful for that matter. I have been looking at a Winegard AP-8275 (29 dB gain VHF, 28 dB gain UHF, 2.9 dB noise VHF, 2.8 dB noise UHF). Would this be a good alternative as far as a low noise amp?? We do not live near any stations, I believe the closest is 15 miles, so I am thinking a high gain preamp would be a good fit. I just wanted to get the feedback on this before I go out and buy something. Thanks again for all of the good info in this thread!! -- Chris |
Front-to-back ratio for UHF antenna
On Jul 6, 9:43 am, szilagyic wrote:
On Jul 3, 5:27 pm, Bob Bob wrote: Hi Chris Much has already been said about your problem. I just have a few more points to add.. - One of the initial "reasons" for masthead preamps was to reduce/remove the loss of the coax run. Quoting the preamp gain in this case is useful but in reality it is much more important to have a preamp device that is low noise or will give you a better signal to noise ratio at low signal levels. There is actually a hard limit based on Boltzmanns constant and the system bandwidth that is the thermal noise on Earth. (ie you can use it mathematically to check your system) If it is spec'd look for the lowest preamp noise figure (NF). Unfortunately low NF tends to go hand in hand with not so good large (undesired) signal performance. If however you don't have other strong signals around you it works well. Some bad preamp designs even "take off" producing their own interference and contributing towards the problem. - One of the killers for low level signal reception is that the local noise near your antenna varies above the "constant" mentioned above. Although rare onUHF, electrical interfering sources can "raise the noise floor" such that the s/n of the wanted signal gets smaller. Ways around this include a good antenna install with very good directivity to the signal source. In some cases you can use the antenna nulls and polarization to reduce interfering signal and of course finding and fixing the interfering source. Your "couple of channels" dropping out could be a local noise problem or equally a propagation/bending/reflection issue. (Reflection problems tend to be short lived though) It may be worth logging the failures to see if they fit a pattern. What frequency the channels are on can also help in the hunt. (eg someone using a 900MHz cordless phone while your weak signal is at the top of theUHFband...) It might be worthwhile finding out what channels the distant stations are on, then purchasing an antenna more centered on that frequency. As a general rule high gain is inverse to bandwidth so for the same amount of metal/size an antenna made to cover (say) 5 channels may have 5dB more forward gain and better f/b performance than a wide band one. A narrower band antenna may also have better undesirable lobes so a local noise problem may be helped. I realize that you are more after a commercially available system but your own design/build may even be an option. In a perfect world an antenna would receive nothing from everywhere except the desired direction! Unfortunately most radiation patterns look like wildflowers on steroids! Wide band antennas are especially horrible. The front to back ratio is not the only important figure. Some antennas have lobes maybe 30 degrees off the back that are only a few dB down from a dipole! Hope this helps. Cheers Bob W5/VK2YQA szilagyic wrote: Hello: I have been trying to find the answer to my question on the front-to- back ratio onUHFantennas, and so far have been unsuccessful. .. I really appreciate the help and feedback on this!! Thank you very much for the detailed information. All of these ideas are VERY helpful, and I will be trying some of these very soon. I have (for reasons that you mentioned) been thinking about replacing the preamp (Radio Shack 30 dB). The manual for it doesn't give the specs for noise, or anything useful for that matter. I have been looking at a Winegard AP-8275 (29 dB gain VHF, 28 dB gain UHF, 2.9 dB noise VHF, 2.8 dB noise UHF). Would this be a good alternative as far as a low noise amp?? We do not live near any stations, I believe the closest is 15 miles, so I am thinking a high gain preamp would be a good fit. I just wanted to get the feedback on this before I go out and buy something. Thanks again for all of the good info in this thread!! -- Chris Your antenna has around 8 dB more gain than mine and you're closer to some of the stations. How long is your cable? If you have Line Of Sight to the towers you shouldn't need much gain at all, basically to make up for cable losses like 5-10 dB. If you're behind obstructions, that game changes a lot though. Instead of the 8275 I would use the AP-8700. There is less gain but more headroom and I suspect that will be more of an issue. http://www.winegard.com/offair/preamps.htm GG |
Front-to-back ratio for UHF antenna
I haven't followed this thread very closely, but the statement that a
preamp is being used when stations are 15 miles away got my attention. I'm roughly the same distance from TV broadcast towers here, and I have to use an attenuator to prevent overloading my TV when using a small antenna in the attic. Without the attenuator, the TV goes blank on a couple of channels. I'd be very surprised if your preamp and/or TV aren't being overloaded, and that might be the cause of problems you're having. Roy Lewallen, W7EL |
Front-to-back ratio for UHF antenna
On Jul 6, 3:14 pm, G-squared wrote:
On Jul 6, 9:43 am, szilagyic wrote: On Jul 3, 5:27 pm, Bob Bob wrote: Hi Chris Much has already been said about your problem. I just have a few more points to add.. - One of the initial "reasons" for masthead preamps was to reduce/remove the loss of the coax run. Quoting the preamp gain in this case is useful but in reality it is much more important to have a preamp device that is low noise or will give you a better signal to noise ratio at low signal levels. There is actually a hard limit based on Boltzmanns constant and the system bandwidth that is the thermal noise on Earth. (ie you can use it mathematically to check your system) If it is spec'd look for the lowest preamp noise figure (NF). Unfortunately low NF tends to go hand in hand with not so good large (undesired) signal performance. If however you don't have other strong signals around you it works well. Some bad preamp designs even "take off" producing their own interference and contributing towards the problem. - One of the killers for low level signal reception is that the local noise near your antenna varies above the "constant" mentioned above. Although rare onUHF, electrical interfering sources can "raise the noise floor" such that the s/n of the wanted signal gets smaller. Ways around this include a good antenna install with very good directivity to the signal source. In some cases you can use the antenna nulls and polarization to reduce interfering signal and of course finding and fixing the interfering source. Your "couple of channels" dropping out could be a local noise problem or equally a propagation/bending/reflection issue. (Reflection problems tend to be short lived though) It may be worth logging the failures to see if they fit a pattern. What frequency the channels are on can also help in the hunt. (eg someone using a 900MHz cordless phone while your weak signal is at the top of theUHFband...) It might be worthwhile finding out what channels the distant stations are on, then purchasing an antenna more centered on that frequency. As a general rule high gain is inverse to bandwidth so for the same amount of metal/size an antenna made to cover (say) 5 channels may have 5dB more forward gain and better f/b performance than a wide band one. A narrower band antenna may also have better undesirable lobes so a local noise problem may be helped. I realize that you are more after a commercially available system but your own design/build may even be an option. In a perfect world an antenna would receive nothing from everywhere except the desired direction! Unfortunately most radiation patterns look like wildflowers on steroids! Wide band antennas are especially horrible. The front to back ratio is not the only important figure. Some antennas have lobes maybe 30 degrees off the back that are only a few dB down from a dipole! Hope this helps. Cheers Bob W5/VK2YQA szilagyic wrote: Hello: I have been trying to find the answer to my question on the front-to- back ratio onUHFantennas, and so far have been unsuccessful. .. I really appreciate the help and feedback on this!! Thank you very much for the detailed information. All of these ideas are VERY helpful, and I will be trying some of these very soon. I have (for reasons that you mentioned) been thinking about replacing the preamp (Radio Shack 30 dB). The manual for it doesn't give the specs for noise, or anything useful for that matter. I have been looking at a Winegard AP-8275 (29 dB gain VHF, 28 dB gainUHF, 2.9 dB noise VHF, 2.8 dB noiseUHF). Would this be a good alternative as far as a low noise amp?? We do not live near any stations, I believe the closest is 15 miles, so I am thinking a high gain preamp would be a good fit. I just wanted to get the feedback on this before I go out and buy something. Thanks again for all of the good info in this thread!! -- Chris Your antenna has around 8 dB more gain than mine and you're closer to some of the stations. How long is your cable? If you have Line Of Sight to the towers you shouldn't need much gain at all, basically to make up for cable losses like 5-10 dB. If you're behind obstructions, that game changes a lot though. Instead of the 8275 I would use the AP-8700. There is less gain but more headroom and I suspect that will be more of an issue. http://www.winegard.com/offair/preamps.htm GG Hello and thanks for the reply! We are mainly concerned with stations that are all between 35 & 45 miles away (don't care about the one that's 15 miles away); and some seem to be weak as current signal strength is about half, and they drop from time to time. Given this, would the AP-8275 work well, or would you still recommend the AP-8700? I have an attenuator just in case. I really appreciate your feedback on this..... Thank you!!! -- Chris |
Front-to-back ratio for UHF antenna
On Jul 6, 5:11 pm, szilagyic wrote:
On Jul 6, 3:14 pm, G-squared wrote: Your antenna has around 8 dB more gain than mine and you're closer to some of the stations. How long is your cable? If you have Line Of Sight to the towers you shouldn't need much gain at all, basically to make up for cable losses like 5-10 dB. If you're behind obstructions, that game changes a lot though. Instead of the 8275 I would use the AP-8700. There is less gain but more headroom and I suspect that will be more of an issue. http://www.winegard.com/offair/preamps.htm GG Hello and thanks for the reply! We are mainly concerned with stations that are all between 35 & 45 miles away (don't care about the one that's 15 miles away); and some seem to be weak as current signal strength is about half, and they drop from time to time. Given this, would the AP-8275 work well, or would you still recommend the AP-8700? I have an attenuator just in case. I really appreciate your feedback on this..... Thank you!!! -- Chris Again, I'm at 35 miles with line of sight to the transmitters and a low gain antenna. The reason I suggested the 8700 is the reduced gain compared to the 8275. Keep in mind that amplifiers are not a panacea and are wideband devices. Just because the local (15 mile ) station is on whatever channel doesn't mean it can't cause overload issues _many_ channel numbers away. At 35 miles with good coax 100-200 feet, I wouldn't expect to need any amplifiers at all, much less 29 dB worth but if you believe you need it, the 8700 should be more tolerant of overload issues. You might even need to put the attenuator _ahead_ of the amplifier to keep _it_ from overloading. GG |
Front-to-back ratio for UHF antenna
On Fri, 06 Jul 2007 09:43:24 -0700, szilagyic
wrote: On Jul 3, 5:27 pm, Bob Bob wrote: Hi Chris Much has already been said about your problem. I just have a few more points to add.. - One of the initial "reasons" for masthead preamps was to reduce/remove the loss of the coax run. Quoting the preamp gain in this case is useful Another way to think of it is if you put the amplifier at the TV set and feed it a weak, noisy signal you will get a strong noisy signal out of the amp. At the antenna you have a stronger signal which has a better signal to noise ratio (s/n) which means you don't need as much gain, and can actually get by with a less expensive preamp. With less gain the preamp is not as prone to signal overload from strong stations either. but in reality it is much more important to have a preamp device that is low noise or will give you a better signal to noise ratio at low signal Again, if you have a good signal with good s/n ratio you *may* be able to get by without having to resort to a preamp with the lowest noise. levels. There is actually a hard limit based on Boltzmanns constant and the system bandwidth that is the thermal noise on Earth. (ie you can use it mathematically to check your system) If it is spec'd look for the lowest preamp noise figure (NF). Unfortunately low NF tends to go hand in hand with not so good large (undesired) signal performance. If however you don't have other strong So, the antenna mounted *may* let you use less gain and not resort to the lowest noise amplifier which both give better performance when in the presence of strong signals. signals around you it works well. Some bad preamp designs even "take off" producing their own interference and contributing towards the problem. - One of the killers for low level signal reception is that the local noise near your antenna varies above the "constant" mentioned above. Although rare onUHF, electrical interfering sources can "raise the With many remote part 15 devices operating in the UHF band it is becoming more common. There are several Amateur Radio bands in the UHF range but those signals although much more powerful than part 15 devices are usually cleaner and are restricted to specific bands unlike part 15 devices. noise floor" such that the s/n of the wanted signal gets smaller. Ways around this include a good antenna install with very good directivity to the signal source. In some cases you can use the antenna nulls and polarization to reduce interfering signal and of course finding and fixing the interfering source. Your "couple of channels" dropping out could be a local noise problem or equally a propagation/bending/reflection issue. (Reflection problems tend to be short lived though) It may be worth logging the failures to see if they fit a pattern. What frequency the channels are on can also help in the hunt. (eg someone using a 900MHz cordless phone while your weak signal is at the top of theUHFband...) It might be worthwhile finding out what channels the distant stations are on, then purchasing an antenna more centered on that frequency. As a general rule high gain is inverse to bandwidth so for the same amount of metal/size an antenna made to cover (say) 5 channels may have 5dB more forward gain and better f/b performance than a wide band one. A narrower band antenna may also have better undesirable lobes so a local noise problem may be helped. I realize that you are more after a commercially available system but your own design/build may even be an option. In a perfect world an antenna would receive nothing from everywhere except the desired direction! Unfortunately most radiation patterns look like wildflowers on steroids! Wide band antennas are especially And stacking antennas makes the patterns even worse. I ran a quadature array (4 antennas mounted 2 high and 2 wide) of UHF antennas which had tremendous gain and a very good front to back, but not just the secondary lobes, but several to either side of those were nearly as strong as the main lobe .. horrible. The front to back ratio is not the only important figure. Some antennas have lobes maybe 30 degrees off the back that are only a few dB down from a dipole! The ones on my quadature array were a lot stronger than that. I finally gave up as it's too difficult to get the proper spacing from side to side across the entire UHF band. Besides at 90 feet I point them (I have one to the NW and one to the S) to the weak UHF stations and they do very well on the much stronger VHF. http://www.rogerhalstead.com/ham_files/tower21.htm They look close together, but those are big antennas separated by about 12 to 15 feet. they probably would have worked better with about 15 feet of vertical spacing and 20 feet horizontal. Hope this helps. Cheers Bob W5/VK2YQA szilagyic wrote: Hello: I have been trying to find the answer to my question on the front-to- back ratio onUHFantennas, and so far have been unsuccessful. .. I really appreciate the help and feedback on this!! Thank you very much for the detailed information. All of these ideas are VERY helpful, and I will be trying some of these very soon. I have (for reasons that you mentioned) been thinking about replacing the preamp (Radio Shack 30 dB). The manual for it doesn't give the I use the RS amps on mine, but with the gain turned down. I end up replacing them every couple of years any way due to lightning. The tower has been taking an average of 3 *verified* hits per summer and I am surprised they last that long. That and the current installation is only about 35 feet below a pair of 144 MHz antennas being driven with a kilowatt and about 20 feet above a vertical being driven with 50 watts on 144 and 35 watts on 440 MHz. specs for noise, or anything useful for that matter. I have been looking at a Winegard AP-8275 (29 dB gain VHF, 28 dB gain UHF, 2.9 dB noise VHF, 2.8 dB noise UHF). Would this be a good alternative as far as a low noise amp?? We do not live near any stations, I believe the closest is 15 miles, so I am thinking a high gain preamp would be a good fit. I'd think 15 miles to a VHF station would provide a pretty strong signal. I just wanted to get the feedback on this before I go out and buy something. Myself I'd prefer the Winegard preamps over the RS ones and there is very little difference in price as I recall. I have the RS preamps only because they were handy to try. Thanks again for all of the good info in this thread!! |
Front-to-back ratio for UHF antenna
In alt.tv.tech.hdtv "Roger (K8RI)" wrote:
| The ones on my quadature array were a lot stronger than that. I | finally gave up as it's too difficult to get the proper spacing from | side to side across the entire UHF band. Besides at 90 feet I point | them (I have one to the NW and one to the S) to the weak UHF stations | and they do very well on the much stronger VHF. If the desired signal is a single channel, two antennas connected 180 degrees out of phase (or flip one upside down), where they are spaced an odd multiple wavelength from the desired source, and equadistant to the multi-frequency side source (if there is a specific noisy source), might do the trick. You might look into these antennas: http://simplicitytool.com/mu_series_uhf_quad_array.htm http://simplicitytool.com/log%20periodic%20arrays.htm -- |---------------------------------------/----------------------------------| | Phil Howard KA9WGN (ka9wgn.ham.org) / Do not send to the address below | | first name lower case at ipal.net / | |------------------------------------/-------------------------------------| |
Front-to-back ratio for UHF antenna
Hi Chris
I think others have pretty well answered your questions. My gut feel is that given the manufacturer even mentions NF is a good thing. ie those that don't may be of poor performance in this area. As others have seen be careful of overload due to closer stations. I once lived in a VHF TV area where signals on 165/180MHz were strong but most people also wanted one on about 49MHz. Many a preamp had problems with the strong stations. I ended up setting up some 1/4 stubs on the preamp input that notched the strong signals enough to stop the bleed through. Cheers Bob szilagyic wrote: I have (for reasons that you mentioned) been thinking about replacing the preamp (Radio Shack 30 dB). The manual for it doesn't give the specs for noise, or anything useful for that matter. I have been looking at a Winegard AP-8275 (29 dB gain VHF, 28 dB gain UHF, 2.9 dB noise VHF, 2.8 dB noise UHF). Would this be a good alternative as far as a low noise amp?? We do not live near any stations, I believe the closest is 15 miles, so I am thinking a high gain preamp would be a good fit. ---- |
Front-to-back ratio for UHF antenna
On 7 Jul 2007 11:38:12 GMT, wrote:
In alt.tv.tech.hdtv "Roger (K8RI)" wrote: | The ones on my quadature array were a lot stronger than that. I | finally gave up as it's too difficult to get the proper spacing from | side to side across the entire UHF band. Besides at 90 feet I point | them (I have one to the NW and one to the S) to the weak UHF stations | and they do very well on the much stronger VHF. If the desired signal is a single channel, two antennas connected 180 degrees out of phase (or flip one upside down), where they are spaced an odd multiple wavelength from the desired source, and equadistant to the multi-frequency side source (if there is a specific noisy source), might do the trick. The individual antennas I have listed above work quite well. Each has its own coax and antenna mounted preamp. I just had problems with all the lobes on the quadature array on some channels. http://www.rogerhalstead.com/ham_files/Tower30.htm The UHF TV antenna pointing to the NW is plainly visible. The one just below it pointing straight south is just barely visible. You might look into these antennas: http://simplicitytool.com/mu_series_uhf_quad_array.htm These antennas are wayyyy too close to really take advantage of using the individual antennas as a quadature array. Regardless of their claims for gain it can't be much more than one antenna alone. Front to back *might* be legit and as they are so close as to perform like one antenna they probably have only minor side lobes. Unfortunately a company that puts big antennas that close together makes me doubt their design criteria and performance figures. Note how close their antennas are Vs boom length to the ones in http://www.rogerhalstead.com/ham_files/tower21.htm and these are big antennas. One thing to remember when stacking antennas. A stacked pair will at best be 3 db better than one. A quadature array (4 antennas) will at best be 3 db better than the stacked pair or 6 db better than one. Again that is _at_best_ Vertical stacking does not add side lobes over the single antenna while horizontal stacking does. Horizontal stacking is also very frequency sensitive so when covering the entire UHF band the horizontally spaced antennas my exhibit quite different characteristics on different channels. This is what makes building a good quadature array that covers more than a few channels so difficult. http://simplicitytool.com/log%20periodic%20arrays.htm |
Front-to-back ratio for UHF antenna
On Jul 2, 1:49 pm, szilagyic wrote:
Hello: I have been trying to find the answer to my question on the front-to- back ratio onUHFantennas, and so far have been unsuccessful. I think I understand what the front-to-back ratio is, but the specs on my Winegard PR-8800 (8 bay bowtie) show negative front-to-back ratios (-9 dB @ ch 14; -17 dB @ ch 32; -11 dB @ ch 50; -9 dB @ ch 69). The "dB over reference dipole" is: 10.7 dB @ ch 14; 12 dB @ ch 32; 11 dB @ ch 50; 12.5 dB @ ch 69. How can the front-to-back ratio be negative, and is this good or bad? I am assuming this could be bad in my case as I would like the signal at the back of the antenna to be minimal. I am currently trying to improve our HDTV reception. I currently have the PR-8800 antenna in our attic hooked to a Radio Shack 30 dB mast amp. This antenna works very well overall. But from time to time, on a couple channels the HD signal strength will drop all the way down, enough to drop the signal or cause break-up. I've been considering a Winegard HD9095P or PR9032 to use in conjunction with the PR-8800 since they have a higher gain than the PR-8800, then rotate the PR-8800 the other way to receive some different stations. I really appreciate the help and feedback on this!! Thanks, -- Chris Thanks to all for the help. I have replaced my Radio Shack 15-1109 preamp with a Winegard AP-8275 preamp (I know the recommended model in this thread was the AP-8700, but I want to put in a splitter and feed about 5 separate devices at some point). After doing a direct swap, I noticed a slight improvement in signal quality. We gained about 5-10% signal strength for HDTV feeds, and about the same for our FM reception. Best, -- Chris |
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