[kwlug-disc] Home made indoor TV Antenna

[Paul Gallaway]

My antenna was clamped to the mast with metal clamp which in turn is
clamped to the tripod with more metal bits effectively bonding the
three (same as your antenna to mast, mast to mast). The tripod bolted
to wood frame of my roof so no direct path to earth other than the
wire (or through my roof...). A heavy gauge copper wire is clamped to
the mast using a grounding clamp [1], and then run to a grounding rod
[2]. I seem to recall a separate screw tie the RG6 shielding (from the
coax block [3]) to my mast clamp which allows for different gauge
wires on the same block. My ground rod was a 10' (8'?) copper clad rod
pounded into the ground - it will go faster with a post hammer. The
length to ground from the antenna should be as short as possible - in
my case I had to run 20ft of cable, in your case you can probably do
it just about on top of your mast and use a very short wire.

Save and Replay uses a 4 foot rod so maybe the 8-10 ft rods are
overkill. They are also advocating 14 gauge wire for grounding which
doesn't sound heavy enough to me (seems optimistic that any wire might
carry "100's of thousands of volts" from lightning). The fence your
antenna is strapped to will likely absorb a fair amount of the
lightning strike as well which isn't a bad thing (where your house is
the alternative). Sayal and Research Electronics (Orion?) may carry
some of this stuff but you probably need to go hardware store for the
grounding rod. Actually, I think 2 years ago Research Electronics did
not have it so I found myself at the HD down the street anyway.

[1] Something like this on your mast:
http://www.homedepot.ca/product/1-2-in-1-in-ground-clamp-bronze-bag-of-1/910033

[2] Something like this on the rod:
http://www.homedepot.ca/product/ground-rod-clamp-bronze-5-8-in-3-4-in/910156

[3]Something like this for the coax:
http://overtheair.saveandreplay.com/HD_Antenna_Grounding.asp
Seems HD also has the coax blocks so I would assume your favourite,
near-by hardware/DIY store would likely have all the stuff above as
well:
http://www.homedepot.ca/product/grounding-block-dual-rg6-rg59/964991
~pAul.

all good things, all in good time...


On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 2:58 PM, Khalid Baheyeldin <kb at 2bits.com> wrote:
>
>> IMHO A heavily pixellated signal is unwatchable.
>
>
> I agree.
>
> When I said "watchable", I meant "bearable", e.g. only a couple of
> pixellation incidents each lasting a second or two only, in the whole hour
> of the program.
>
> If it is more frequent, then it is very annoying and not watchable.
> --
> Khalid M. Baheyeldin
> 2bits.com, Inc.
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