Discone & Digital TV

[Thayne]

Just for kicks I hooked the last port on a Stridsberg 4 port multicoupler fed with a RS discone that is about 30 ' high that I use for feeding 3 scanners, to a DTV converter. I figured it wouldn't be so hot because of the impedance mismatch and some concern that I was told TV is usually horizontally polarized.

Guess what, it works better than one of those Winegard amplified "flying saucer" antennas mounted about 4 feet below the discone. Channel 59 that the winegard cannot see comes in fine with the discone.

Just thought I would throw that out there if anyone has a discone laying around or already up to give it a try instead of buying a TV-only antenna. I even found a BNC male to F female adapter that made the connection easy---

 

[zz0468]

Well... how about that. Maybe discones aren't so bad after all, and maybe crappy preamps really CAN harm reception more than they help.

 

[Thayne]

Well... how about that. Maybe discones aren't so bad after all, and maybe crappy preamps really CAN harm reception more than they help.

The Only thing I like about Discones is they are so wide freq wise, but now I will take the flying saucer down, both of them being so close together are too hamsexy for my roof---

 

[gmclam]

One of the problems many people have with ATSC reception is not signal strength - it is multipath. To "solve" their multpath problems people use directional antennas (and often point them away from the desired signal source).

The thing about a discone is that it is omnidirectional. Now if you are in a wide open area, I can see it might work pretty good. But if you are surrounded by moutains, tall buildings or other structures; then I think the multipath be too much for ATSC.

 

[Thayne]

One of the problems many people have with ATSC reception is not signal strength - it is multipath. To "solve" their multpath problems people use directional antennas (and often point them away from the desired signal source).

The thing about a discone is that it is omnidirectional. Now if you are in a wide open area, I can see it might work pretty good. But if you are surrounded by moutains, tall buildings or other structures; then I think the multipath be too much for ATSC.

Around here, about 2/3 of the stations are on lookout or squaw or Mt. Morrison, but a few are on a tower north of Denver, and a couple are south, but it is at least 20-30 miles in any direction for me so maybe that helps. It sure works better than the "Flying saucer" though. I don't see how it is big enough physically to work on the low channels but they are the ones on the mountain.