anybody know stuff about BIG home use antennas? (antennae?)

[Chuck(G)]

I'm not sure what you mean by the "head", Joe. Do you mean the rotator (I assume the guy had something like a 40 meter beam up on the tower)? Do you have both the "head" and the control unit? Do they work?

Yeah, if it's all working, you can probably put an antenna up there for TV and FM. You'll probably have to run new coax, as hams tend to use 50 ohm cable and most TV stuff is made to match with 75 ohm cable.

Whether it'll be worth the trouble is your decision.

Cheers,
Chuck

[MartyNeilan]

My stepfather in the quest for "bigger is better" bought the largest antenna Radio Shack made about 22 years ago. It was nearly as long as the house was. It easily dwarfs the one in your pic; they have discontinued it for at least 10 years now. He had it mounted on a large tripod in the middle of his roof along with a rotor. We lived in the shadow of NYC, but he was able to pull in stuff from Philly easily. Delaware, too I think. FM was crystal clear as well as TV; I don't think those kinds of antennas handle AM. A hurricane a few years later busted the rotor, so it was left pointing in the NYC direction. When the roofing shingles were needing replacement, the whole assembly was ditched instead for cable. When you live in a deteriorating urban neighborhood, you don't exactly want something that calls that much attention.
rotor:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... age=search
tripod mount:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... age=search

[pg]

Go to http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx and put in your new address. It will show you the distance and direction of the nearby TV stations and recommend an antenna for each. It knows the power of the stations somehow but doesn't tell you that - just hints based on the type of antenna it recommends.

This helped me figure out that I could get all the local broadcast stations in High Def - much better picture than standard cable and sattelite pictures - and all for free if you don't count the cost of the high def receiver.

--paul;

[Dan Schultz]

If you bought a 'cheapo' 13" black & white from Goodwill... and shinneyed up that tower with it... I'll bet the reception would be tremendous with just rabbit ears 'course, you'ld need a pretty long extension cord... unless you could figure out a way to sap some power from any nearby powerlines. Hey!... you could put a little windmill on top of the whole thing and run it through one of those old Chrysler alternators that made 110V

[Brassdad]

If you bought a 'cheapo' 13" black & white from Goodwill... and shinneyed up that tower with it... I'll bet the reception would be tremendous with just rabbit ears 'course, you'ld need a pretty long extension cord... unless you could figure out a way to sap some power from any nearby powerlines. Hey!... you could put a little windmill on top of the whole thing and run it through one of those old Chrysler alternators that made 110V

I have visions of Green Acres - with Eddie Albert up the pole to answr the phone. But I'd rather be behind Eva when she was up there

[prototypedenNIS]

we used to run an antenna on top of the house with a signal booster.

We were able to pick up TV from North Dakota (fuzzy to somewhat clear) and on amazing weather days, can get TV from Detroit (very fuzzy)

Our Antenna was as large as a large car

[Chuck(G)]

You'd certainly do better to put a large antenna atop the tower. If it's capable of being raised and lowered at will , I'd also try to retain that feature. Based on my years of operating base and mobile CB radios, higher is always better. You might check that wire running across to the tree a bit closer. if the wire is bare, it's most likely a ground wire for in case the tower gets hit by lightning. If it's insulated, it's bound to be something else that's probably HAM related. By all means, you need to make sure that the tower IS grounded. You don't want an errant lightning strike turning your nice investment into a grease spot.

If this was a ham setup, the tower would be grounded (sure thing, just about) and you might even find ground radials buried underground. Hams tend to be obsessive about antennas.

Radio amateurs aren't confined to a single band like CB-ers and throwing up a wire for operation on a another band is perfectly reasonable. Heck, I once used the rain gutter for 6 meter operation.

[tubatooter1940]

Higher is better. An antenna rotor and a signal booster on a large as possible horizontal array will pick up an amazing number of free stations from up to 150 -300 miles away max.
The tower is best buried in the ground. We watched ball lightening slowly decend our T.V. tower to ground. Surge protect the T.V. set.

[Daryl Fletcher]

Since the FM radio spectrum is between TV channels 6 and 7, hooking your stereo up to a really high TV antenna will probably give you amazing reception.

As far as AM is concerned, what I've typically seen is the use of a long wire antenna. It's a very old concept, but it still gets the job done quite nicely. Most of the insulators I've seen have been made out of glass, although plastic ones are also available.

[LoyalTubist]

The idea of TV antenna propagation amazes me. My ex-wife and I used to stay in a cabin in the San Bernardino Mountains, just north of San Bernardino, in Crestline. With just a cheap rooftop antenna (and a 25 year old RCA Color Trak console TV) we were able to pick up all the local channels (Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Orange County), as well as most of the stations in San Diego, Palm Springs, Barstow (there is only one), and, at night, Bakersfield and Santa Barbara.

I don't pretend to understand this area. But there is inside me a desire to see how far I can reach with a TV antenna. I used to like to do this with the family car radio when I was growing up. That got old when, one night, I tried doing some DXing in my old Cadillac and all I could get was Art Bell--in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Francisco, San Diego, Albuquerque, St. George (Utah), Denver, and a few places in Texas and Oklahoma.

Still, I enjoy watching the local news from various locations. I don't think DXing is dead as a hobby.

[SplatterTone]

If you don't mind a late -- probably irrelevant by now -- comment: The long wire antenna is used with an antenna tuner (a metal box with pair of big variable capacitors combined with a roller inductor) to match the antenna to the frequency one is using. One can work all bands with just one antenna if one doesn't mind fiddling with the tuner every time the frequency is changed. My guess is that the antenna "head" is a tri-band beam -- probably for 20, 15, and 10 meter bands. The most common variety is three elements; and you can see the tuning coils (fat parts) on the elements.

I used a run-of-the-mill Radio Shack TV antenna on a rotator for a long time with good results. If the tower is as impressive as you describe, you should be able pick up all kinds of stuff with it. Back in the 60s, my grandparents lived in Bristow, OK which is between Tulsa and OKC. They would just go outside and manually turn the pole to point one way or the other to pick up TV from both cities (we're talking pre-cable TV days).

Of course, without cable TV or satellite you won't be able to get the naked people channels. Something to think about.

Splatter "who got Extra Class ham license in 1988 when 20 WPM code was still required" Tone.
(But hasn't been on the air for quite a while.)

[Rick Denney]

Joe, go to Radio Shack and get the biggest TV antenna they have. It will work fine on top of your Rohn 25 tower (I'm assuming it's a Rohn).

In this case, new is better than big. TV antennas are cheaply made and die of old age pretty quickly. The latest antennas are not as big as they once were, but having tight, corrosion-less connections will mean more. With the flat terrain and the line of sight offered by a good tower, you'll get great reception with Radio Shack's biggest, and it will fit within your general outlook on money spending.

50 miles is not that great a challenge if you have a good tower and flat terrain. I can receive acceptable images from DC, and we are 60 miles away, over two sets of hills that are much taller than our antenna, and our antenna is quite old. Replacing the antenna would get us much better reception, but I get all the local channels on the satellite now and haven't been motivated to risk my neck scaling the chimney.

When I lived in Leesburg (50 miles from DC), I installed a new Radio Shack antenna in the attic of my house, since my neighborhood had a ban on outdoor antennas that I was unwilling to challenge just to watch TV. It worked fine, and it was point straight into the side of a hill.

Pointing it well is important. If you have to change the angle more than 15 degrees or so to optimize all your stations, you may need a rotator. But I find that digital tuners have made it easier to get a good signal even with an antenna not optimally pointed.

Rick "who wants channels that require pointing something round and 18" in diameter" Denney

[Chuck(G)]

In this case, new is better than big. TV antennas are cheaply made and die of old age pretty quickly. The latest antennas are not as big as they once were, but having tight, corrosion-less connections will mean more. With the flat terrain and the line of sight offered by a good tower, you'll get great reception with Radio Shack's biggest, and it will fit within your general outlook on money spending.

I once knew a fellow who thought he'd thwart the corrosion problem by painting his brand-new 20 meter 3-element beam with zinc chromate. Absolutely ruined the thing (zinc chromate's nonconductive).