TV Reception / Digital Antennas
Just wanting to know what fellow campers are using if not hooked up to cable or satellite dish. What type of digital device / antenna are you using for TV reception? Thanks in advance!
Forum Discussion
After trying DishTV and DirectTV for several years in our current house, we decided to go back to just over-the-air television. The camper picked up over 60 channels with the simple batwing and (booster) antenna, but the house did not have an antenna, as it was wired for satellite television. Fast forward a bit....
I was able to get a nice long pole and bought a standard old style VHF antenna and to my disappointment, it didn't work. Now mind you, there is more than 600 feet of coax wire running through my house. So I even attempted a true "booster" and connecting one room at a time, still did not work. No picture. Each room in the house was wired for satellite and had a separate line running to a single junction point. As the hosue is 2800 square foot and spread out over 1 level, that's a lot of square foot ... "foot print" and wire to run under the house, up walls, and through the attic. And I even added a few more lines myself.
I then added that square antenna. That antenna is over 50 years old. My dad was a television repair man, and when UHF was first introduced, he sold a LOT of these. Mom still had this one in her garage attic, never used, so she let me have it.
I actually wired both up together, and viola! We get the same channels (all 60 plus) in the house that we do in the camper, in every room, with a signal running through more than 600 feet of coax ... AND NO BOOSTER at all! (Really.... I've got a true spiderweb of coax running through my house, and every line clearly marked which rooms they go to.
So this configuration ... a standard old style VHF television antenna mixed with a 50 year old UHF antenna and no boosters at all, pull in over 60 stations from all 4 directions of our house. Believe it or not ... but true!
I was able to get a nice long pole and bought a standard old style VHF antenna and to my disappointment, it didn't work. Now mind you, there is more than 600 feet of coax wire running through my house. So I even attempted a true "booster" and connecting one room at a time, still did not work. No picture. Each room in the house was wired for satellite and had a separate line running to a single junction point. As the hosue is 2800 square foot and spread out over 1 level, that's a lot of square foot ... "foot print" and wire to run under the house, up walls, and through the attic. And I even added a few more lines myself.
I then added that square antenna. That antenna is over 50 years old. My dad was a television repair man, and when UHF was first introduced, he sold a LOT of these. Mom still had this one in her garage attic, never used, so she let me have it.
I actually wired both up together, and viola! We get the same channels (all 60 plus) in the house that we do in the camper, in every room, with a signal running through more than 600 feet of coax ... AND NO BOOSTER at all! (Really.... I've got a true spiderweb of coax running through my house, and every line clearly marked which rooms they go to.
So this configuration ... a standard old style VHF television antenna mixed with a 50 year old UHF antenna and no boosters at all, pull in over 60 stations from all 4 directions of our house. Believe it or not ... but true!
