HD Amplified Flat Panel (TV) Antenna

[shirsch101]

Recently I have tried with much success a few HD TV Amplified Flat Panel Antennas with a variety of scanners and SDR's. The RSSI signal is much higher along with the clarity of the voices is much clearer. I am comparing this to an outdoor Discone Antenna, mounted 20 feet above ground and a few indoor antennas.
The questions I am asking am I damaging the scanner which should be 50 ohms and the HD TV antenna which is 75 ohms?

Thanks

Steve

 

[mmckenna]

The questions I am asking am I damaging the scanner which should be 50 ohms and the HD TV antenna which is 75 ohms?

No.

 

[shirsch101]

That is great hear. Kind of weird it works really well. Does any have any other tricks or tips for antennas?

 

[dave3825]

Does any have any other tricks or tips for antennas?

Generally, its best to use an antenna tuned for the freqs your monitoring. But sometimes, like this, people see good results. Just curious, you did not state what freqs you did this on.

 

[shirsch101]

Believe it or not 25Mhz to about 900Mhz worked great with P25 Simulcast 700-900Mhz

 

[Ubbe]

A normal size discone have a lot of attenuation at the horizon of 700MHz-900MHz signals, 10dB-20dB.
A flatpanel antenna have directivity and more gain in that direction compared to a omni discone.
I guess that the antenna are just one or two bowtie type antenna elements that have a wide frequency range.
If you have a 536 you can push the rotary controller and volume to display the bit error rate of digital signals to compare and adjust for lowest possible value.

/Ubbe

 

[dave3825]

I guess that the antenna are just one or two bowtie type antenna elements that have a wide frequency range.

Think most of them are like that. Here is a Mohu Leaf being torn down.

What's Inside a Mohu Leaf Antenna? - DisableMyCable.com

If you follow my site, you know that I’m a big fan of the Mohu Leaf flat indoor antenna. It gives me over one hundred channels here in Los Angeles. One day, reader Philip asked me what was inside the Mohu Leaf antenna. Hmmm, good question! From all of my antenna testing, I happened to […]

www.disablemycable.com

 

[G7RUX]

Having read some of the information around these antennas and having done a few calculations, I have ordered a cheap variant to have a go with for VHF/UHF scanning. The idea doesn't look mad so will report back when I have had a bit of time to evaluate!

 

[bigcam406]

I have been using an unamplified Antennas Direct Clearstream 2 with my GRE PSR600 for a few years now and i noticed a slight improvement in reception for distant signals in my area. Great antenna for dxing during summer months.

 

[ewh01]

The county next to me (where I "grew up" in the FD) is on 700. I was get mediocre signal using the rabbit ears that came with the dongle. I was going to build a Yagi, then had the thought that they are using old TV frequencies, so why not try a TV antenna. I put one of these in my garage attic, pointed it at the nearest transmitter and fine tuned it using the graphs in OP25, works great!!

 

[krokus]

Generally, its best to use an antenna tuned for the freqs your monitoring. But sometimes, like this, people see good results. Just curious, you did not state what freqs you did this on.

The 800 MHz freqs are former TV UHF, so most TV antennas will work well.

 

[merlin]

I used one of those before I got my discone up and they seem to work great, even indoors before putting it just above the eaves.
They seem to be bi-directional like a dipole. One I used did well down to the FM BC band and then, had to use a trap. Below that seemed to fall off and not much use at 55 Mhz and below.
The preamp went PFFFT in an electrical storm, so here it sits.