Discone as a TV antenna

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bearcatrp

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Anyone try or use a discone to pick up tv stations? I would have to order a cable with the correct ends but don't want to pay for one and not work. Wanting to shut down my satellite service if I can get this to work. Don't want to put up another antenna. Thanks.
 

n3obl

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I use my scan tennis to receive scanner plus pipe into tv system.
 
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Anyone try or use a discone to pick up tv stations?
Anything metal will work as an antenna. First of all, it will be the wrong length.

Whether it "works" or not depends how strong the signal is at the "Antenna".

You won't know until you try it.
 
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mmckenna

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A discone has zero gain and is non directional.
Your average TV antenna is directional and has gain.

If the TV station you are trying to receive is close enough/strong enough, there's no reason a discone would not work.
If you are the fringes of coverage, the lack of directionality and gain are going to be an issue.

In other words, give it a try and see if it works.
 

Randyk4661

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I did for several months in the Los Angeles area.
Depending on the weather conditions, it work quite well. Other times, not so well.
 

eaf1956

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A discone has zero gain and is non directional.
Your average TV antenna is directional and has gain.

If the TV station you are trying to receive is close enough/strong enough, there's no reason a discone would not work.
If you are the fringes of coverage, the lack of directionality and gain are going to be an issue.

In other words, give it a try and see if it works.
Not to mention TV antennas are Horizontal not Vertical
 

merlin

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The discone was designed with TV in mind decades back. The typical 'scanner' discone will work very well for channels 7 and above.
For channels 6 and down, I use a dipole cut for channel 3 and combine with my discone.
Enough gain to get everything that covers my place.
That original discone was big, cut for 45 Mhz and up.
Most scanner sort are cut for 100 Mhz and up, maybe to 950 Mhz.
 

bearcatrp

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Thanks folks. My discone is 25 MHz and up. Am about 50 miles from the big 3. My SDS200 picks up the edge of the twin cities. I know my 5th wheel antenna picks up a crap load of stations that’s parked in my yard. Guess I’ll give it a try. Will post back my findings.
 

dlwtrunked

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Not to mention TV antennas are Horizontal not Vertical

...polarized. I was wondering when someone would finally mention that. Then one can of course mount the discone horizontal but then it will also be directional ( with best reception in 2 opposite directions). Still a proper TV antenna that would work better is cheaper than a discone. Related: My first UHF military satellite antenna was a ground-plane antenna mounted horizontal. Actually it worked quite well; but I have better antennas now.
 

dlwtrunked

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Yes, but most TV transmitter antennas seem to be circular polarized these days so H or V on receive doesn't matter much.

Actually, most (all the ones in my area from checking the FCC database) are elliptically rather than circularly polarized with the major axis being horizontal (indicated by H>V in the FCC database). For this reason, generally, if a linearly used receive antenna is used, a horizontal one will do better than a vertical.
 

jwt873

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In the old days, if you lived in a large city you could pick up the strong local TV stations with a simple set of rabbit ears sitting on top of the set.

For fun one day, I plugged my 144/440 dual band amateur vertical into my TV to see if it would work.. (The antenna is on a tower at 40 feet). I picked up all close in channels no problem. A few fringe stations were spotty... (Glitching and dropping in and out).

But, rather than using a discone, I'd pick up an omni directional outdoor TV antenna. That way you'll be using something designed for the job. https://www.amazon.com/omnidirectional-antenna/s?k=omnidirectional+antenna
 
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iMONITOR

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Anyone try or use a discone to pick up tv stations? I would have to order a cable with the correct ends but don't want to pay for one and not work. Wanting to shut down my satellite service if I can get this to work. Don't want to put up another antenna. Thanks.

Simple enough to try, should work fine!
 
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