Coat Hanger UHF Antenna
So I have decided to add an ATSC tuner to my HTPC machine. My choice, the WinTV 1800. I have a few extra PCIe slots and aside from USB devices, this appears to be the only other device supported. In fact, it appears to be the only PCIe device supported. Only the ATSC tuner is supported at this point, though it looks like people are working on the analog tuner, which drives the Svideo in and the FM tuner as well.
So my device arrived and I realised that my rabbit ear antenna probably isn’t going to be work well. After a few scans with dvbscan, I am actually picking up everything except KIMA and FOX, according to antennaweb. Fox apparently isn’t broadcasting on ATSC yet ;/
A quick google search for HDTV antenna tells me not to waste my money on expensive internal antennas, that I should either get a good external UHF antenna or build one myself for cheap.
I looked locally for a DB4 or DB2 external antenna. I have an extra coax run from my roof, so this would have been idea. However, no one in town sells them apparently.
On to option B i guess. So I find two sites that describe how to build a custom DB2 antenna. The first describes how to make it out of coat hangers for less than $10. Upon reading, I already have everything needed except the matching transformer and spare metal coat hangers. In the comments, people talk about using romex… now that is something I have spare of. The second site describes pretty much the same design, only the demensions are a little off.. 7″ instead of 5 3/4″ between Vs and it’s build using a 2×4″ instead of a 2×1″, but is ment to include a deflector and a rotor.
Ultimately, I wind up using a spare piece of 3×1″ with 5 3/4″ spacing and romex. I got the matching transformer from Radio Shack, because I was sure they would have it. However it was $6! I found out later they have them at Bimart for $1.30.
After rescanning, I am now getting KIMA and much better signal on all the other transponders.
I’ll upload pictures when I get a chance.