Radio Shack TV Antenna Conversion

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Fielder3

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I have a Radio shack 100 mile range HUGE T.V. antenna 8-10' long. The end of it has what looks like a yagi directional UHF. Has anyone ever messed with these like cut off the VHF end, replaced the cable connectors and make them a UHF/800 style directional antenna?
 

Ubbe

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When studying the frequency diagrams of TV antennas it is usually the case that it works good at lower UHF frequencies as it falls off very little in gain, but at higher frequencies above 700MHz TV band if falls of rapidly and cannot be used. It depends of the antenna.

I have had great success with TV UHF antennas and worked way better than any 1/4 or 5/8 UHF GP and even some VHF frequencies came in better than on a 1/4 GP VHF antenna. It will be mostly directive so the signals you want to receive needs to be in that direction.

/Ubbe
 

k9wkj

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all of the bits of antenna like that are a Log Periodic Array >LPA
TV channels are 6Mhz wide and a Yagi wont cover that very well while maintaining its directional pattern
it may be a great scanner antenna right out of the box
but polarity could be a issue
 
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Ubbe

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If you have an antenna to spare you could modify it. Look up any yagi calculator on the web and use only the back part of your antenna with the reflector and perhaps 4-5 elements instead of the 10-20 you have now. You probably have antenna elements that looks lik an X so cut those down to the size that the calculator says and the distance between the elements are important so see to that it is possible to make new holes and move the elements to the calculated postitions. It should work great and remember to twist the antenna so it is using vertical polarization instead of horizontal.

The lenght of the elements and the distance bertween them are mathematical related to the frequency so any yagi calculator will work.

/Ubbe
 
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