television antenna

[grayghost]

we've had our 2720/sl for a week. since we bought it to attend field trials from early fall to late spring we have it sitting in our driveway. yesterday we checked out all the appliances and hooked up the little tv/vcr we bought. now we live way out in the country and the closest tv station is about 35 miles away and there are some hills in between. when we first moved here we had a huge 30 foot antenna and could not get the local station. so we subscribed to satellite tv.

well yesterday we plugged in the little emerson tv, adjusted the antenna on the tm and viola got nbc from paducah ky. we even got the pbs station out of lexington (a 5 hour drive for us). what a great antenna and little tv/vcr. i'm sure we can get at least one channel no matter where we are in this great country. 8) 8) 8)

[Windbreaker]

I have camped in may places that did not get broadcast tv. Now the good news, you have satellite. For the cost of an extra box, dish and $5/month you can take it with you. Or you could save a little and take the box from home. (no $$$ for box, no $5/month)

[grayghost]

windbreaker - we do not have one of those small
dishes - we have the big c-band satellite. i'm not
sure how that would work out with setting it up in the tm. i am planning on making some vhs tapes before trips and as tired as we are at the end of a day - one movie probably will probably still be on by the time the sandman comes LOL

[Windbreaker]

LOL, you're right I always pass out before the movie ends, but I guess DW stays awake cause it is all shut off when I get up for the middle of the night hike.

[Happytrails]

I'm by no means an expert on antennas, but for a short time in the army, I served as the company RTO (Radio Telephone Operater) using the Singar system and included Vincent which after the signal was frequency hopped, would also encrypt it. Yes, the Singar is a radio that transmits at 200 different frequencies a minute/second? or so, not only that, they had to be phased into timing every so often, you couldn't just pick up a singar, and simply listen in, that could be adjusted to a particular "phase" and ya'd think that would be hard enough to follow, but as an added security issue, they have an extra 5lbs to throw in your rucksack to encrypt it to.....lol That being said, and saying again, I'm NO expert on antennas, but I seem to recall something about the size of the antenna and the size of the transmitted sine wave of the radio/tv? signal being a DIRECT relation. When we were forced to wrap a wire around a triangle of sticks, and toss it into a tree, it *HAD* to be a certain length to a side. (I'm not at liberty to discuss the exact sizes). And yes, there were times we had to do this because of distance issues. But at least I might be able to answer that mystery. I'm not so sure all civilian antenna manufactuers understand that simple concept, and simply say "bigger is better". Any Ham radio enthousiests in here to explain this better? I'm sure "powered" antennas have something to do with reception, but can't believe someone would sell a 30ft nonpowered antenna? ??? Anyway, just a few thoughts..........

Happytrails........

[Windbreaker]

I, like Happy, really don't know what I'm talking about but I know that antennas can be electronicaly extended. I'll bet that is what the power is for.

We were at one site and could get nothing without the power on but go three or four stations with it on. That was before we found out how cheap it was to move the satellite over.