HDTV Antenna

Build your own, inexpensive and works great

Why spend your hard earned money on an expensive HD/Digital over the air antenna when you are perfectly capable of making your own. It's fairly straightforward to build and works great, even when placed in the basement ( although results may vary ).

Putting it all together

I am personally a big netflix fan. The price is right and I get enough content to entertain myself just so.

Additionally there is HD digital over the air, however my old antenna did not do a sufficient job in picking up the digital channels. We also had a wonderful time with channels distorting as we moved around the room. We would play this game where we had to put up one arm or stick out a leg to get reception just right.

I went to the usual big box stores target, best buy, etc; the antennas they offered said that we would get great reception. The price tag left a bit to be desired and the design of the antennas left nearly no where to put them on my already full TV table. They had this monstrosity of an antenna with all sorts of prongs sticking out every which way. There was one that was a flat antenna that looked like a giant mouse pad; they suggested mounting this antenna on the wall or just to leave flat on the table.

Due to their not so enticing price tag, I did a little research online. No one was fanatical with the performance of these store bought antennas. I found that there was a group who were building their own antennas on the cheap and touting their great reception left and right. As this price was more than great to build my own, I set forth to radioshack and the local Lowes to gather the required materials.

1. A board
2. Some 12 Gauge copper wiring ( it would be easier to be bare, but I used some left over house wire I had and just stripped off the insulation )
3. Short screws and washers
4. Electrical Tape
5. A little transformer to go from a two wire lead to the coax ( 75 to 300 Ohm UHF/VHF Matching Transformer )

Considering that I am a DIY person - I already had everything I needed except for the transformer. Which made this a 4-5 dollar project for me.

The assembly goes pretty quick. There are more detailed plans online for this, I took the best and easiest tips from each and built my own.

Using this antenna, the TV was able to pick up all available HD digital channels in my area. Not only did it pick up all channels, but the reception was impeccable. We could dance around the living room and not interrupt the reception.

However, the antenna is rather large and unsightly. My home was wired for cable television. It has the standard layout where there are a few coax jacks around the house that tie in to a central hub in the basement. I had the bright idea that maybe the antenna would work from the basement. At the same time I wondered if it would impede the reception at all being in the basement. I set off to experiment, I grabbed some extra coax cable I had and tied the antenna into the hub in the basement. I fired up the television and to my surprise there was no difference in the reception. This was great, the antenna is now in the basement operating out of the storage/electrical room. We now have no antennas upstairs, the TV is simply plugged into the coax jack on the wall.