Building My Own UHF TV Antenna

I built my own UHF antenna for the TV in my hall by using the plan that I found at http://www.tvantennaplans.com/. The given plan is meant to be an indoor antenna. I placed mine under the front porch away from the sun and rain. With this antenna, I can receive both UHF channels (NTV7, 8TV, TV9 and TV Alhijrah) and VHF channels (TV1 and TV2 and TV3). This is a surprise to me as this antenna design is meant for UHF reception only! I do not have any explanation. Perhaps this is because there are not many high-rise buildings in Ipoh, the place where I live. Irrespective, I am not complaining. It saved me the trouble of building a separate antenna for receiving VHF channels.

This antenna is connected to a Panasonic LCD TV in the hall. I have the 'Noise reduction' function enabled on this TV. On the whole, the reception is good with this antenna. The picture quality received is quite clear. There is some very slight 'ghosting' for TV1 and TV9 but they are viewable. I must admit, TV reception could be better if I were to take the trouble in finding the best orientation for this antenna. But I did not. As long as I can get the best reception for the frequently watched channels in the house, I sort of ignored the others. Nobody in the house is complaining anyway. Audio for all channels received are in stereo except for TV2. I have to set TV2's audio to mono as it sounds a bit 'hollow' when it is set to stereo.

Parts That I Use

I created the 8 V's for the antenna with steels wires that can be bought from any hardware store. I also use this steel wire to hook up the 8 V's together on two separate lines as given in the plan.

I already have an existing balun - the type as shown above (picture taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balun). As such, I connected the antenna to the balun with twisted-pair copper wire that I have cut out from a CAT5 local area network cable.

I use a piece of wire mesh - they are car stereo speaker guards actually - to act as the reflector for the antenna. It is eliptical in shape measuring about 6"x3". I have placed the reflector on a separate stand about 3" behind the antenna. A bigger reflector would be definitely better but I was worried about it toppling over when strong wind is blowing. I tried doing away with the reflector but then there will be problems with the audio reception for NTV7. Audio will flip between stereo and mono with annoying clicks and different audio intensity intermittently.

Conclusion

On the whole, I am happy with this antenna. I think I saved at least a RM100 by building this antenna myself. I very much like the idea that I do not have to place the antenna on the roof. As everything is on ground level, I can easily fix it myself if anything were to go wrong with it.