Interesting lesson learned from experimentation today.
I have a quad bay UHF television antenna. I use it along with two in-line signal boosters to power my police scanner, two television sets and an AM/FM stereo. We get 3 channels for free from a PBS tower about 30 miles away as the crow flies.
To me, since the center conductor of an antenna is connected to the radiating portion in a CB antenna, it made sense to me that the antenna should be folded so that the smaller elements, which had continuity with the center conductor, were on the inside of the V with the larger ground plane panels behind them so that signals would be reflected off the ground panels and focused to the inside of the V where the receiving elements are. However, the opposite is true. When I folded it that way, I lost all reception, but when I reversed it so that the ground plane elements were in front facing the broadcast tower and on the inside of the V, it came in. I also found that closing up the V does not necessarily focus a weak signal in and make it stronger. A 45 degree angle seems to work the best and gives me a stronger received signal than a sharper angle.
I also found that this UHF antenna will not pick up one other station that is in the same direction (on the same hilltop actually) that is in the Hi-VHF band. I've got a cheap-o VHF scanner antenna that picks it up "kind of", but it's in and out and takes constant adjustment. The other UHF channel works flawlessly with a signal strength that bounces between "good" and "excellent" using only the UHF antenna. I tried co-phasing the VHF and UHF antennas together since they're both passive/receive only, and the UHF channel(s) were still excellent, but the VHF channel(s) were still very weak and in/out.
If possible, I'd like to find either a good VHF antenna to co-phase, or a good broadbanded antenna that will pick up both these UHF channels and the HiVHF channels.
This is the antenna I've got up right now: www (dot) amazon (dot) com/gp/product/B00DHHMOUW
Anybody have any suggestions for something I could upgrade to that might pick up the 3 UHF channels and the two VHF ones at the same time?
I have a quad bay UHF television antenna. I use it along with two in-line signal boosters to power my police scanner, two television sets and an AM/FM stereo. We get 3 channels for free from a PBS tower about 30 miles away as the crow flies.
To me, since the center conductor of an antenna is connected to the radiating portion in a CB antenna, it made sense to me that the antenna should be folded so that the smaller elements, which had continuity with the center conductor, were on the inside of the V with the larger ground plane panels behind them so that signals would be reflected off the ground panels and focused to the inside of the V where the receiving elements are. However, the opposite is true. When I folded it that way, I lost all reception, but when I reversed it so that the ground plane elements were in front facing the broadcast tower and on the inside of the V, it came in. I also found that closing up the V does not necessarily focus a weak signal in and make it stronger. A 45 degree angle seems to work the best and gives me a stronger received signal than a sharper angle.
I also found that this UHF antenna will not pick up one other station that is in the same direction (on the same hilltop actually) that is in the Hi-VHF band. I've got a cheap-o VHF scanner antenna that picks it up "kind of", but it's in and out and takes constant adjustment. The other UHF channel works flawlessly with a signal strength that bounces between "good" and "excellent" using only the UHF antenna. I tried co-phasing the VHF and UHF antennas together since they're both passive/receive only, and the UHF channel(s) were still excellent, but the VHF channel(s) were still very weak and in/out.
If possible, I'd like to find either a good VHF antenna to co-phase, or a good broadbanded antenna that will pick up both these UHF channels and the HiVHF channels.
This is the antenna I've got up right now: www (dot) amazon (dot) com/gp/product/B00DHHMOUW
Anybody have any suggestions for something I could upgrade to that might pick up the 3 UHF channels and the two VHF ones at the same time?