TV Reception - a rehash

[Drover]

Looked around some new vans and see that they still fit TV aerials which won't be any good in some areas we travel...........Forget about the digital reception myth or the colour TV myth, in Australia your signal be it UHF or VHF can be transmitted as a horizontal or vertical configuration so you need an antennae which will pick up both...............
.

this and this...

won't

nor will this...they are configured for horizontal reception, they can work when very close to transmitter or you turn them on their side...........

You can get an overpriced tinny attachment which will enable both the Wingard and Jacks antennae to pick up vertical sigs.........it's the vertical fins on the mast in the pic.



....Now these ones should get reception no matter what the transmission.....

Snowflake and the Saturn

of course there are some that are not hard mounted to the roof so you can adjust them when you stick them on a pole...................if you look at the house aerials they will generally tell you what and where or you can check out a handy app which will give you all the info and where to point your gear....a Fed Govt app thats very good, surprised !!!! it's called "MySwitch". UPDATE: The MySwitch app isn't available now but the website still works Google mySwitch.

mySwitch

I have just used the most common aerials as there are many types out there........of course in some places you are camped in the signal shadow so your stuffed....places like Carlo Point, InnSkip and Tannum Sands.

 

[Bushman]

Camp in Yass & Boorowa NSW and you'll get SFA reception know matter what aerial you have, unless you use at satellite

 

[Drover]

Not wrong there, transmitters over near Orange and Junee somewhere, lot of thought put into that.............miles away in hilly country..

 

[ChrisFatboySydney]

Re Sat setups. Does anyone know how strict the government is on getting traveler permits?

I see you have to renew every six months. Is there a limit on how often you can renew?

Chris

 

[Drover]

No restrictions really, when you first set up you get your gear locked onto the sat then log onto the MySat site and register, have a cup of coffee and by then you have TV shows running, every 6 mths you just renew your registration, can do it from a month before due, all online and very quick.......You will find that if you haven't used it for a month or so you will need to go online and get it rebooted, again just enter your card serial number hit enter and it's all working again. You can get ABC or SBS from any state but commercial are only for the area you nominate, just means the news is not very local .

 

[Bushman]

Was funny when I set mine up. sitting home in back yard getting adds from NT & SA

 

[Bellbirdweb]

Re Sat setups. Does anyone know how strict the government is on getting traveler permits?

I see you have to renew every six months. Is there a limit on how often you can renew?

Chris

Very easy to register and renew, just a couple of clicks every 6 months to keep it active.

We get the whole country no matter where we are.

 

[Drover]

Pulled this thread out of the depths to add some more info...

Youvé plotting your next trip and want to know if you can get TV or even where the phone transmitters are well other than my Switch for your Tele you can download the location for all sorts of towers from the ACMA site to add to Google Earth. Here's the link.


https://www.acma.gov.au/Industry/Sp...es/list-of-licensed-broadcasting-transmitters

 

[Dobbie]

Useful!

Also, I downloaded the app ....ABC Listen...during the week as I seem to listen only to the ABC...and it has a list of all their broadcast areas and tuning info. I know it's available elsewhere but this seems easier.

Very useful for me as the other one I was using was unwieldy.

Now I just need a decent radio in the car which has a decent antenna. I've given up trying to upgrade or tweak it as I don't believe it will help.

 

[Drover]

FM is the biggest problem, when on the road it just doesn't have any range like the old AM...............lots of people spend big dollars on aerials for their radios both 2 way and broadcast, when a cheapy will do the same job, bit of thought to location and cabling gives more value than the name...............I've built a few aerials over the years and location and good quality fittings is the thing, my $10 850mhz yagi gets a better signal than the $170 DiPole I was given, mind the di pole is way easier to set up, it's very KISS while the Yagi is very LOSA.

 

[Crusty181]

Pulled this thread out of the depths to add some more info...

Youvé plotting your next trip and want to know if you can get TV or even where the phone transmitters are well other than my Switch for your Tele you can download the location for all sorts of towers from the ACMA site to add to Google Earth. Here's the link.


https://www.acma.gov.au/Industry/Sp...es/list-of-licensed-broadcasting-transmitters

Years ago I had the hardcopy of the terrestrial transmitters addresses around Oz along with their GPS locations. That was before satellite, of course. I entered a GPS location into my Tom Tom as a POI, and the Tom Tom will display the compass direction from my location to the transmitter ... that's the direction to point the antenna (so long as the car is parked next to the van when I did it).

Now there's just one location to rule them all ... 156 deg E

 

[1DayIll]

ok so the question is, what is the best TV antenna going?

 

[Bluey]

I have a voyager built by a bloke in SA very good he makes lots of them for caravans i took the snow flake one off and fitted it to the mast it turns vertical or horizontal for a tv antenna to be any good it must produce gain and snow flake ones dont im no tech head but it seems to work well but a dish and sat tv works evan better google voyager caravan antenna you will find them

 

[Bluey]

A few pics of it on my roof theres more pics somwhere posted the antenna is mounted on 25mm pvc so i upsized it to 32mm so i could slip it over the mast the elbow or right angle system right up the top allows it to turn i just lay it down over the door reach up and turn it standing in door way very easy best TV antenna out there i reckon

 

[1DayIll]

View attachment 57046 View attachment 57047
A few pics of it on my roof theres more pics somwhere posted the antenna is mounted on 25mm pvc so i upsized it to 32mm so i could slip it over the mast the elbow or right angle system right up the top allows it to turn i just lay it down over the door reach up and turn it standing in door way very easy best TV antenna out there i reckon

ok i will have a look at your post and see of i can find it

 

[Drover]

Saturn or a Snowflake just stick them on the mast and fully KISS, there are some others but they require a pole and tinkering.....if an aerial will pick up horizontal and vertical transmissions then it will be good for most places, one on the roof with a mast will work better than the jobs that just sit above the roof......few of the vans I've fiddled with had the worst aerial wiring bad connectors, poor crimping and shoddy joins, didn't matter what aerial they wouldn't work very well.

 

[Bluey]

ok i will have a look at your post and see of i can find it

I put voyager antenna into the search engine here and more pics and threads came up so not hard to find

 

[Crusty181]

I have a voyager built by a bloke in SA very good he makes lots of them for caravans i took the snow flake one off and fitted it to the mast it turns vertical or horizontal for a tv antenna to be any good it must produce gain and snow flake ones dont im no tech head but it seems to work well but a dish and sat tv works evan better google voyager caravan antenna you will find them

The problem with your antenna @Bluey was you had to start with the expensive (yet average) winegard, in order to slide the good antenna over the Winegard pole

 

[Hylux]

I recommend you fit a GSM filter as well. If you are camped close to a mobile phone tower (within maybe 1km), you will have problems no matter how good your antenna is.

 

[Crusty181]

I recommend you fit a GSM filter as well. If you are camped close to a mobile phone tower (within maybe 1km), you will have problems no matter how good your antenna is.

If it a Vodapone tower it will balls up your mobile as well