Rabbit ears for a scanner antenna?

[Josh380]

You guys remember the old days when you used to have to adjust the rabbit ears for your TV? It seems someone on ebay is selling one (and has sold quite a few). One thing is for certain..this guy is selling 'em for $20 and probably making them for less than $2. Genius. I'm ready to go to radio shack and buy up all their connectors and cable and find me some free rabbit ears.

Anyway, I know that analog TV used to be on vhf and uhf, so it seems plausible that it would perform well between 120-440mhz or so, but the seller is saying it will pickup from 25 mhz to 1300mhz, which has me wondering how well it would perform on the higher and lower ends.....

And isn't a dipole antenna highly directional?

 

[Voyager]

Even a screwdriver will pick up the same range - just not well.

Digital TV is in the same bands as analog was, FYI. (minus some of the higher channels)

 

[Jimru]

The rabbit ears will work, for sure. They will work better if you adjust the lengths according to the frequency you are monitoring. The elements would be extended fully for VHF low and collapsed fully for UHF, for instance. I messed around with a pair years ago when I had a switched from OTA TV to cable in NYC. They worked fairly well, but were cumbersome in my small apartment, so I went back to using the Rat Shack loaded whip.

 

[teufler]

Got friends that use tv antennas, outside versions for scanner antenna and get great range. As has been stated. anything can pick up signalks if the source is strong enough. Possible to get stronger signals, place by a window.

 

[bigcam406]

i used an Antennas Direct DB2e for awhile indoors mounted on a wall in my bedroom to experiment with reception.great for dxing in the summertime.i use various antennas made for DTV use for better reception,rabbit ears to 2 bay bowtie.great to experiment with.

 

[nbdyspclk]

In the house I connect to my digital"free tv" antenna mounted on my roof,pickup as far as Castle Rock,fringe on Colorado Springs.mobile just standard mag antenna.rabbit ears should work fine like OP said,adjust for frequency

Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk

 

[teufler]

oHJ jOSH380, a dipole is slightly directional to the broad side. There is alittle gain on the broad side.
Dipole antenna - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Most of what we monitor is vertical polorized so in a perfgect world, the diploe or the tv rabbit ears would hve to be vertical or hung from the ceiling.

 

[Voyager]

Slightly directional? That's like saying a penny is slightly copper color. Dipoles are very directional off the broad side. Just look at the radiation pattern of one. They have very deep nulls off the ends.

 

[popnokick]

While not as effective for scanning as an outdoor-mounted TV antenna, this antenna will easily beat rabbit ears for scanning and is pretty simple and cheap to put together (scroll down Wiki page to wire version) -
Homebrewed Off-Center Fed Dipole - The RadioReference Wiki
You can hang the wire version vertically in a window, on a balcony, or behind curtains and it will still work.
Rabbit ears could be set up as an OCFD, however I've yet to see a set of rabbit ears that had 48" telescoping antennas (the length required for one leg of the OCFD).