New from Radio Free Waldenburg
Piratin' on 915 MHz
or
How to get NASCAR in the garage
New from Radio Free Waldenburg
Piratin' on 915 MHz
or
How to get NASCAR in the garage
I have been trying to get the NASCAR Races out in the garage. Most of the races and all of the other racing related programs are on satellite. Buying another Satellite or running another coax for occasional use was too expensive or too time consuming.
To get the TV programming to the garage I hooked up a 915 MHz transmitter in the house to relay the program to the receiver in the garage. The problem is that the set-up is only made to work inside a house and with-in 50 feet. The receiver in the garage is 185 feet and through several walls from the transmitter. I could either up the power or improve the antenna, upping the power is very expensive so it was out.
The picture is of my final approach and it works great. There are two 7 Element Cubical Quads with a combined gain of about 15 dBi, about the same as upping the transmitted power by 32 times!!! They are built from scrap wire and plastic. The Dollar store provided the coax cables and the splitter. I modified the splitter to be a "Y" to run the antennas in parallel.
The first antenna that I built was a 7 element Cubical Quad that worked but I had wavy lines in the picture and it would fade at times. The 7 element Quad was rated at about 12 dBi, about the same as upping the power by a little more then 16 times! I then tried a bunch of other antenna designs that looked better on paper but, were all worse in practice.
Antennas are sometimes like Black Magic, so a lot of experimenting is needed to fit any given situation.
BTW, I went through three TV's to get a 19" with a good tuner. Now days the TV tuners are crap, they expect that you to have cable. I had rabbit ears at first and then added the magic box. The tuner is the most important part of any TV but, try finding a good one..
If you would like to try something like this; find an old Gemini Rabbit Transmitter and Receiver set or there many others. The antenna on the Receiver has to be removed and a coax connector installed.
Some Rabbit info can be found here
900 mhz ATV Experiment
Antenna dimensions here
Cubical Quad Antenna Calculator
900 mhz ATV Experiment
Antenna dimensions here
Cubical Quad Antenna Calculator
See the One and Only BudTenna
Email me at: KB8GPO@comcast.net
Last updated October 15, 2006