Many people enjoy picking up Channel 6 VHF on their FM radio tuners in their car, and mobile scanners (such as the BCT-15) even include television broadcast as one of the scanner modes. However, since over-the-air (OTA) broadcasts in the United States are changing over to ATSC (i.e. HDTV) digital broadcasts this coming February, those analog audio-only listening benefits will be lost.
(Here's hoping Uniden updates the Bearcat mobile scanner line with an ATSC tuner built-in. But until then...)
So then I got to thinking about those two $40 coupons the government is handing out for digital converter boxes, and that those DTV converter boxes are certainly digital electronics running on DC internally... to make a long story short I then found someone who was already doing what I was thinking about:
Putting a converter box with the built-in AC/DC adapter removed into the car running directly off of 12v DC (i.e. 13.8 vDC, with an in-line AGC fuse of course) and putting the audio-out into the aux-in of the head unit (or to a monitor speaker, if you're so inclined).
After the coupon, this RCA DTA800 costs about $15.
This person has done exactly that:
http://mobiledtv.blogspot.com/
However, this brings me to my question. Since most HDTV is actually broadcast on UHF rather than VHF, namely between 470 and 862 MHz, what mobile antennas will service this range -- particularly while the vehicle is in motion?
(Here's hoping Uniden updates the Bearcat mobile scanner line with an ATSC tuner built-in. But until then...)
So then I got to thinking about those two $40 coupons the government is handing out for digital converter boxes, and that those DTV converter boxes are certainly digital electronics running on DC internally... to make a long story short I then found someone who was already doing what I was thinking about:
Putting a converter box with the built-in AC/DC adapter removed into the car running directly off of 12v DC (i.e. 13.8 vDC, with an in-line AGC fuse of course) and putting the audio-out into the aux-in of the head unit (or to a monitor speaker, if you're so inclined).
After the coupon, this RCA DTA800 costs about $15.
This person has done exactly that:
http://mobiledtv.blogspot.com/
However, this brings me to my question. Since most HDTV is actually broadcast on UHF rather than VHF, namely between 470 and 862 MHz, what mobile antennas will service this range -- particularly while the vehicle is in motion?
