Antenna question...

donn0128 wrote:
Yes, you need a digital antenna. The old bat wing is not suitable for anything more than a bad paper weight.

The oldest batwings were VHF antennas, these go back to .. Well, the very first antennas they made,

Any batwing you might encounter today is a VHF/UHF (Actually VHF is two bands VHF low and VHF high, it covers both).

Now, an antenna does not care if the signal is digital, analog or something else (And yes there are other things, like Spread Spectrum and so on, It does not know AM from FM it only knows wavelength, which for this discussion is 300/frequency in Mhz, or Frequency (See formula)

The Batwing can be improved in the UHF band however by adding the Wingman.

So, back in teh good old fuzzy analog days TV stations transmitted on, originally 13 channels, then 12, then 81, then 69 as the FCC did various things with some of the channels (Channel 1, for example is now a Ham Radio band, nobody was using it so the FCC gave it to us).

I do not know what happend to chan;'s 70 through 83, but they too were not getting enough use, so the FCC re-tasked them)

MOST (not all) analog stations, with the switch to digital, moved into the UHF band (14-69) These are the very same frequencies the Batwing was designed to receive.. And as I said it only cares about frequency (or Wavelength which is basically the same thing inverted)

Thus the Batwing works just fine as a digital Antenna, I'm using one to watch digital as I type.

HOWEVER.. you can improve it:

As noted, the WIngman helps, I added one.

Also replacing your interior wall plate with a Sensar Pro helps This unit offers additional amplification. (Adjustable too).

Since I have a "Box of many buttons" the Sensar Pro goes before it, the only exception to "nothing between the BOMB and the ANTENNNA save coax.


The major differences between Digital and Analog.

Stations are now broadcasting at a fraction of the power they used to use.. The reason is they do not need all that power any more.

Stations are mostly using UHF, Actually the FCC wants them ALL to move to UHF but there are still some vhf hold outs,, WHY do they want 'em to move.. Well.. they have already sold the bandwidth and the new owners are getting ticked.

With analog as you moved away the signal went 5,4,3,2,1 nothing

With digital it goes 5,5,5,5,2,nothing.

UHF is more weather senistive. And uhf antennas are genrally a bit "Tighter" beam width wise (More directional)

The signals however, are not, your antenna is.


Why do I know they do not need the old higher power levels for digital?

Well, as a licensed radio operator I can talk to most of the USA using 100 watts into a long wire antenna on the bands I work, using Voice (Single side band, which is very efficient by the way) not so well using AM (Which the old analog signals were, believe it or not, AM).

Using Digital, and turning the radio down to oh, about 30-40 watts, I have worked France, Germany, Russia, Japan, Italy.. You get the idea.

I have had one, just one, overseas contact on voice.