TV aerial for radio?

[Martin Bush]

Sorry if this is in the wrong area... It's an odd one so please move it if needs be.

I have a large TV aerial in the loft. It's not connected to anything and is just taking up space.

Before I remove it and take it to the tip I wondered if it or any part of it, could be of any use for anything else? I'm thinking radio rather than TV.

[paulsherwin]

Is it a UHF or VHF aerial?

Band I aerials can be cut down and used for FM, while band III ones can be used for DAB. Old UHF aerials aren't much use for anything else.

[Martin Bush]

I will have to look. I was surprised to find it to be honest as I previously only the reached up to put boxes in.

It looks new, but it is out of the elements. We have another working one on the roof that was put up when we moved in.

[sentinel040]

I use the co-ax screen of my unused UHF TV aerial (I dont watch TV any more) as an aerial for the radio in my sitting room; it's not perfect but it comes out in roughly the right place and saves running another wire around the room.

Regards

Ian

[SteveCG]

Any chance of a 'photo ?

[Focus Diode]

You could try connecting it to a tuner to see what the results are like. Nothing to lose if the results are poor. Depends on what reception is like in your area.

I used to connect the inner core of a UHF aerial to the HMV 1131's AM aerial socket in the '70s which dramatically improved reception.

In Chippenham ATV Oxford was poorly received using a rotatable UHF aerial. I was very surprised to find reception was better from the 6-element BII VHF/FM array directed at Wenvoe!

Cheers
Brian

[stevehertz]

Originally Posted by Focus Diode

..
I used to connect the inner core of a UHF aerial to the HMV 1131's AM aerial socket in the '70s which dramatically improved reception.

....

I used to connect all my vintage AM sets to the outer screen of my UHF aerial downlead for excellent results. When I 'came back' to VW a couple of years ago I was astounded and dismayed to find that all I got now was a load of noisy, digital hash when performing the same trick!

Who invented SMPSs anyway!!

[Doghouse Riley]

I've on old 405 line dipole aerial in the loft I put up there in the seventies for my tuner/amp. It worked well. But I don't use that radio now very much.

It has the old thin coax cable feeding down an outside wall and in through the side of the bay window in our front room. I now use it for the TV in that room and get a brilliant picture on all channels including HD. I guess a lot of that is how near a transmitter you are. We're in south Manchester.

[jsbhavsar]

I had this option in India for my National Ekco A731 8 band valve radio. The TV antenna post on top of my building (owned by me) was sending the several meters of twin TV antenna wire down through the folded dipole(the antenna has several other straight sticks as well).

I tried connecting one end of that TV wire to the aerial socket of my radio and it was no good, noisy. I gave up.

I then selected the typical inverted L type.
i) 6 to 7 meters of 14 gauge single conductor bare copper wire wiithin egg insulators
ii) Some 7 to 8 meter of insulated aluminium wire to bring the signal down to the radio aerial socket.

Result: Much better

If my valve radio just needs a random length of several feet of wire, what was wrong with the TV aerial wire that was on top connected to the folded dipole?
Was twin wire the problem or was the folded dipole on top the problem?

[Herald1360]

If you fed the twin wires into the aerial and earth connections you would have pretty much shorted them together signal wise. If you simply connected one or both to the aerial connection it should work but would still be open to any local noise from other equipment in the building.

14Gauge copper sounds extravagant unless you already had it. That thickness of copper isn't cheap! Any old insulated flex would be fine. Also, the joint between ally and copper sounds like corrosion waiting to happen. Cue rusty nail effects, cross modulation etc.

[joebog1]

Steve hurts said

Who invented SMPSs anyway!!

I use to love DX'ing just with AM short wave.
what happens now ?? its not even white noise put perhaps pink noise.
AGC is clamped full on so reception doesnt happen.
I also live hundreds of miles from the nearest city ( townsville 380 kliks by road, AND over the hill, not a wish away)
I also live 20 kliks away from the Village I call home.
I know why I play records !!


Joe

[Synchrodyne]

Well, if you want to be really retro, the attachment shows how it was done - that is, AM radio from a TV aerial - yesteryear.

Cheers,

[G6Tanuki]

Ooh! The possibilities for fireworks if either the TV or the radio (or both) used AC/DC techniques seem rather great here!

In the past I've used a redundant UHF TV antenna and its feeder as an impromptu HF/MF antenna by just linking the inner and outer pins of the coax socket together. If the feeder is long and runs to a TV antenna mounted high and outside, it works. Feeders embedded in wall plaster runnimng to a loft/attic antenna would be less efficient.

Somewhere I've still got the coax-plug-fitted-to-a-35mm-plastic-film-can with a single 4mm banana-socket on the other end.

[Synchrodyne]

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

Ooh! The possibilities for fireworks if either the TV or the radio (or both) used AC/DC techniques seem rather great here!

Maybe not. On the AM radio side, there were transformers top and bottom of the balanced feeder, and antistatic aerial systems typically allowed for several connection setups mostly according to how the primary side RF earthing was done. The possibilities included using the bottom transformer in isolating mode. And at the time, whilst AC-DC radio receivers were commonplace, that was not the case with TV receivers. At least according to Wireless World 1948 September, the first British example the was the Pye B18T. (So that was the start of the slippery slope...)

Cheers,

[paulsherwin]

But almost nobody had a TV in 1948. Pretty much every British TV in the postwar valve era had a live chassis.

A TV aerial (even a UHF one) will often work reasonably well for FM radio simply because it's high up.

[jsbhavsar]

Originally Posted by Herald1360

14 Gauge copper sounds extravagant unless you already had it. That thickness of copper isn't cheap! Any old insulated flex would be fine. Also, the joint between ally and copper sounds like corrosion waiting to happen. Cue rusty nail effects, cross modulation etc.

I am not sure about gauge but its 14 or 16. But it was much cheap to buy that thick conductor some 5 to 7 meters in 2002 or 2003 in India. Now, I do not know the price. My current setup on top of the terrace of my RCC building is from 2003. Yes, the copper wire has taken some black coat etc from weather and corrosion, however the setup has survived and performance is still great on SW bands. Because setup looks worn out, possibility of it getting robbed / stolen is quite less.

I dont want to renew the copper wire + aluminium wire setup for few reasons:
a) If I renew now, many people would get to see it "brand new" and might then damage or steal it or break it.
b) Cost - It will cost me around $20+ for new wires, etc
c) Effort - Hell of an effort to climb up and do the stretching.