TV Reception - a rehash

[Drover]

Okay @1DayIll , bumped just for you........................

If you wanted to cut costs, a Yagi TV aerial like the one in the pic mounted on an extendable pole off your bumper or draw bar would give you pretty good reception, of course your location and the tower plays a very big part.

........of course depending on the transmission you would have to mount it for horizontal or vertical, it would just require a flip of the bracket..............Though a flat grill aerial with 4 elements does a good job as well.............shown in vertical and horizontal modes.

..........You would need a thru wall TV socket to make things easier than running a cable thru a door or window, just plug cable from aerial to outside and TV to inside bit, if using a stand alone aerial a booster doesn't give all that great advantage, on most van aerials they are needed because the build compact and a circuit is needed to make up the loss of physical antennae properties..........TV running on 12v or 240v wouldn't matter one bit.
.

.............. I have built a number of aerials for TV, 2 way radios and Mobile's, most of the problems for them all stem from poor connections and bad alignment..........

You will find that most transmitters outside of the city area are UHF, polarization varies but no great need for a VHF/UHF aerial..................

If I was doing a fresh, new set up I would actually go for a Sat Dish with VAST STB it would work out cheaper than a new Snowflake van set up...... and contrary to reports, if you have some nouse, setting up a dish is only a couple of minutes and doesn't require $300 of fancy tech gear to find the signal, just a bit of practice and knowing where you are.... $4K and I would have the ultimate dish set up, push the button and it does it all itself, now thats Bling I would like...only mention Sat as I take my Foxtel box on the road with me and combined with the Vast Box have the TV covered, also use a Google Chromecast to stream stuff if I'm too lazy to set up the dish, have a Mobile aerial for my Nighthawk Mobile Broadband, all the angles covered...So a smart TV and a mobile broadband unit, TV is redundant.................

 

[1DayIll]

Thanks.
Would I be able to use the old set up with the antenna cable or would you suggest a new one?

 

[Drover]

Throw us some pics if you can, if it was set up for a TV before its more than likely you will just have to plug a TV in with an aerial on the other end and it will work, if the cable looks corroded at all then it will probably need replacing though, vans use short lengths mostly so no need for super expensive cable I use RG58, good all round cable........experiment with the set up, you won't blow anything up, I even plug my Van TV into my shed system so I can configure the channels when I've been fiddling with things just to confirm where a fault is with the van aerial, just means plugging van into the shed though.

 

[1DayIll]

Ok thanks. I have just used the Ariel set up from when I got the van and all has been ok so far.
My other concern is the size if the tv and if I can wall mount it. I will get one if I can and go from there

 

[Boots in Action]

Thanks.
Would I be able to use the old set up with the antenna cable or would you suggest a new one?

Okay @1DayIll , bumped just for you........................

If you wanted to cut costs, a Yagi TV aerial like the one in the pic mounted on an extendable pole off your bumper or draw bar would give you pretty good reception, of course your location and the tower plays a very big part.
View attachment 64583........of course depending on the transmission you would have to mount it for horizontal or vertical, it would just require a flip of the bracket..............Though a flat grill aerial with 4 elements does a good job as well.............shown in vertical and horizontal modes.

..........You would need a thru wall TV socket to make things easier than running a cable thru a door or window, just plug cable from aerial to outside and TV to inside bit, if using a stand alone aerial a booster doesn't give all that great advantage, on most van aerials they are needed because the build compact and a circuit is needed to make up the loss of physical antennae properties..........TV running on 12v or 240v wouldn't matter one bit.
.

.............. I have built a number of aerials for TV, 2 way radios and Mobile's, most of the problems for them all stem from poor connections and bad alignment..........

You will find that most transmitters outside of the city area are UHF, polarization varies but no great need for a VHF/UHF aerial..................

Hello @1DayIll , just a little late because @Drover has covered all the important points and as you have already some sort of antenna with the van, this may not be applicable now for you. But as @Drover said, if you do not have a good gain antenna, (I had a "Tall Boy Foldaway TV Antenna" which I could attach to side of van which was fairly useless in difficult areas), you do not have to go overboard to get a good signal in most places. The antenna @Drover has shown above is compact and has good gain - a full wave phased array. I have seen these at Jaycar for around $50.00. These will pick up VHF in local capital cities plus UHF which you usually needed outside these areas. The larger antenna you see on houses are too big for vans so the Winguard type are good for vans, but cost heaps. I also do not want to spend money on unnecessary equipment, so got myself a half wave phased array with a masthead amplifier as in the picture. The important thing @Drover said was the state of the cable and the connections. I use RG6 cable myself, less attenuation (loss of signal) and better shielding to prevent interference from outside sources. Another hint is always look at the fixed antennae on nearby buildings/houses and make sure your antenna elements face the same way, the wire mesh (reflector) faces AWAY from the transmission direction. I have seen many vanners complaining about lack of reception when their antennae are facing the wrong way - some just follow the "herd" mentality! and all are wrong! Hope this helps you "get the picture".

Earlier on this thread, I saw someone complaining about poor radio reception. Can't do much when on the move, but if stopped in a difficult reception park, all you have to do is throw a length of light multi-strand wire over a few tree branches (the higher the better) and extend it 20 metres or so (perferably at right angles to site of radio station), connect the wire to your antenna on side of van and you can pull in a lot of radio stations, both AM and FM. I only have a small "rubber ducky" type antenna on side of van (bloody useless in most places!), so I just unscrew rubber coated antenna and connect antenna wire to metal screw remaining. Have helped many a vanner with very upmarket vans that way by connecting wire to their metal antenna.

 

[Bluey]

I looked at them but a lot of the time we turn out tv towards the bed end it sits on the little table near the bed but i dont think we could turn this one with the legs on the ends it would hang off at one end
The one we have has a stand in the middle easy to turn but its a smallar tv
Stop mucking around get a vast sat tv set up never have an issue again over 100 channels ok all the same from all states if you miss somthing can catch it later from SA or perth i like the NT adds when watching melbourne news lol