This document provides instructions for building three different types of DIY TV antennas: a single bay Gray-Hoverman antenna, a folded dipole antenna, and a bow tie antenna. It includes a list of materials needed and step-by-step directions for assembling each antenna. Additionally, it provides background information on digital TV conversion and the author's experience building antennas to receive digital broadcast signals from distances of over 50 miles away.
1. DIY TV Antennas
1. Single Bay Gray-Hoverman Antenna (SBGH)
2. Folded Dipole Antenna
3. Bow Tie Antenna
4. Television Frequency Table
1. Single Bay Gray-Hoverman Antenna (SBGH)
The Gray-Hoverman Antenna is an open source design that shows high performance
for most Digital / HD channels broadcasting in the U.S. today. Details about the
history and evolution of the design, as well as detailed technical information, can be
found at the official web site: http://www.digitalhome.ca/ota/superantenna/
(Note: One visitor emailed me to say that they believe that this is more simply a
Hoverman Antenna and NOT a Gray-Hoverman. In reviewing the original
specification at digitalhome.ca, I still believe this is a Gray-Hoverman. But do want to
acknowledge that this is a point of debate.)
As with my Folded Dipole Antenna, my goal here is to provide guidelines for a
version that is inexpensive, easy to assemble and simple to install in the attic.
Still, this antenna should perform quite well for you. This is the antenna that I
2. currently use in my attic and I get 22 channels. Most of these are broadcasting from
45 or even 50+ miles away. (See the broadcast tower information for my area at TV
Fool.)
Parts List:
• 2 - 4 foot 1x4 pine boards
• 6 - 3/4" Screws
• 6 - Finish Washers
• 10 - 2" Wood Screws
• 2 - 5' lengths of 14 gauge wire
• 1 - Balun - This transformer is needed to adapt the antenna's signal to your T.V.'s
coax input. It is available from many sources. I got mine at my local Walmart for
less than $5. See pictures below.
• 1 - 2 foot by 4 foot THIN plywood or masonite board
• about 8 feet of 12" wide aluminum foil.
• clear packing tape
Assembly:
Mark one of the 1x4 boards as shown. The first line should be 7" from the end of the
board. The second should be 10" from the first. The third 10" from the second.
3. Mark one each of these three lines with two marks as show. The marks should be
5/8" in from the edges of the board.
For the actual antenna elements, I used 14 gauge wire that I got at my local home
improvement store. It came in a 100' roll costing less than $7. For this project, I used
two 5 foot lengths. Cut these lengths from the roll and try to straighten them out.
They will probably still be a bit wavy at this point, but that is okay.
4. Now bend the wires to the shape described in the diagram. I marked my wires with a
permanent marker at 5 1/2" and then every 7" to know where to bend.
5. Using a pair of pliers to hold the wire as you bend it will help you get sharper angles.
When you are done with all of your bends, you will probably have about 7" extra wire
to snip off. Trim this down to 5 1/2" AFTER you have made all of your bends. This
leaves room to correct errors you might make during bending.
To attach the antenna elements to the board, I used some short screws and finish
washers. I like the way these washers "grab" the antenna elements better than plain
flat washers. Put a screw and washer at each of the six marks on your board. Do not
screw them in all of the way yet so that you have room to put in the antenna
elements.
Put the inner bends of the antenna elements under the washers. The bend in the
wire should go inside the screw. Tighten down the end screws, but leave a little room
in the center screws to attach the balun.
6. Place the spades of the balun around the center screws and under the antenna
elements. The ends of the balun should be in direct contact with the antenna
elements. Tighten down the center screws.
The main assembly of your antenna is now complete. Depending on your needs you
may or may not want to add a reflector to your antenna. A reflector will help give
stronger reception for weak stations in the direction that the antenna is pointing. But
on the down side, it will block the signal of stations behind the antenna. Without a
reflector, I was able to get 26 channels with this antenna. But I added the reflector to
7. increase the signal on a particular station that I wanted to get from over 50 miles
away. After adding the reflector, I am only getting 22 stations.
Skip down to see a simple base that you can stand up this antenna with.
I built my reflector from a thin piece of masonite measuring 24" by 33". To begin,
draw two lines down the center of the board running length wise. The lines should be
1" apart.
Tape aluminum foil to the front of the reflector. Use the lines to keep a space
between the foil on the left and the foil on the right.
8. Make two spacers to support the reflector from 1x4 pine. Cut these spacers to 3 1/4"
long. Screw the spacers to the top and bottom of the reflector as shown.
I did the final assembly of my antenna in the attic because it was easier to get the
pieces up there that way.
To attach the reflector, screw through the front of the antenna into the spacers on the
reflector. The aluminum foil on the reflector should be centered behind the reflector
elements.
9. Attach the cable to your television to the balun on the antenna. The cable should go
down between the antenna elements and not in front of them. I used some zip ties to
hold the cable in place.
The base of the antenna was made by attaching the remaining piece of 1x4 to the
bottom of the antenna. For stability, you could screw this to a rafter or two. Mine is
just balanced there since wind is not a concern in my attic.
PVC SBGH With Reflector
This is the first Gray-Hoverman Antenna that I built. The frame is 1/2" PVC fitted
together without glue. The antenna elements are secured to the frame using zip ties.
The reflector is made from poster board and aluminum foil.
10. 2. Folded Dipole Antenna
This is the third antenna that I built but it is also the simplest, both in terms of design
and construction. It is also the design that impressed me the most.
A folded dipole is a very basic antenna design. Often, it is combined with other
elements such as reflectors to produce more powerful antennas. But I wanted to see
how it would perform in its most basic form since that would be easy for anyone to
build. This antenna took me less than 10 minutes to build and I was surprised to find
that after placing this in my attic, I was able to bring in 13 digital channels. This
included the four major network channels (ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX), some
independents and a few news and weather channels. The nearest tower is 8.8 miles
from my house and the furthest is 51.6 miles away! (See the broadcast tower
information for my area at TV Fool.) While this did not perform as well as my Gray-
Hoverman Antenna, I would recommend it as a first build. If it gets all of the channels
that you want, you won't need to take the time to build something more complex
unless you want to.
Parts List:
• 1 Metal Coat Hanger
• 2 Screws
• 1 Balun - This transformer is needed to adapt the antenna's signal to your T.V.'s
coax input. It is available from many sources. I got mine at my local Walmart for
less than $5. See pictures below.
• 1 Wood Board - For this build I used a pine 1x2 that I had laying around my
garage.
• 1 Bracket - This is used to mount and pivot the antenna. Again, I used one that I
had laying around.
14. Homemade DTV Antenna
In June of 2009 the government-mandated switch to digital television (DTV) went into
effect in the United States. With this change comes more channels along with DVD-
quality picture and sound. To enjoy these benefits of DTV, all you need is a converter
box (or a TV with a built-in ATSC tuner) and a decent antenna. This page explains
how you can build a great little antenna for not a lot of money and start enjoying over-
the-air digital.
My Digital Conversion Experience
When I first found out about over-the-air digital TV I was pretty excited. I had heard
that DTV broadcasts were in the UHF band and UHF channels had always been
among the best analog reception for me. So I went out and bought a converter box
and hooked it up to a cheap UHF loop antenna. Amazingly enough I got many
channels with good clarity. I had a few had dropouts here and there, but overall the
15. picture quality was better than cable. Then I noticed a couple channels were missing.
After visiting antennaweb.org, I found out why.
It turns out that not all digital TV is broadcast in the UHF band. In fact, in Chicago
there are two stations (CBS2 and ABC7) that still broadcast over VHF. Since a VHF
antenna was required, I resorted to adding a pair of rabbit ears to my UHF loop. So
now I've got free over-the-air digital TV, but at the expense of a really hokey-looking
antenna atop my entertainment center.
I started searching the Internet for a better solution. There are several space-age
looking "HDTV-ready" antennas out there, but surprisingly many of them were only
designed for the UHF band. I managed to find a few that advertised VHF and UHF
coverage, but upon closer inspection the VHF band was pulled in by a set of rabbit
ears.
Building My Own
I have a pretty solid background in electronics, so I decided to try my hand at building
an antenna from scratch. I figured that with a little research, I could make one that's
better performing and less obtrusive than what's commercially available.
I started by researching some basic designs and finally settled on the half-wave
folded dipole. I chose this antenna design for several reasons.
• Easy to understand, well documented antenna design.
• Can be built with readily-available 14 gauge copper wire. (The same stuff used
deliver electricity to household outlets.)
• Good bandwidth covering a full octave.
• 300 Ohm impedance connects to commonly available matching transformers.
Design Criteria
Digital TV is broadcast in two bands, VHF High (RF channels 7-13) and a portion of
UHF (RF channels 14 - 51). According to information at cgsnetwork.com, these
channels correspond to frequencies 174 - 216 MHz and 470 - 698 MHz respectively.
Looking at the DTV broadcast frequencies, I determined that it's just not possible to
build a single folded dipole that performs well over the entire range. This did not
surprise me however, since analog TV always required using two different antennas,
one for VHF and another for UHF. So I decided to build two antennas and use an
old-fashioned VHF/UHF combiner to bring the signals together.
16. The UHF Antenna
I started with the UHF antenna. I figured that being smaller it would be easier to
construct and I wouldn't waste much wire if it took me a couple tries to get it right.
The first thing to do is calculate the measurements of the folded dipole. I chose the
center of the UHF band for my target frequency of 584 MHz. The formula to calculate
the length of a folded dipole is taken from the ARRL Handbook For Radio
Communications that I checked out from my local library.
l = 468 / f
where l is length in feet and f is frequency in Hertz
or
l = 5616 / f
where l is length in inches and f is frequency in Hertz
Using the formula, I found that the length of antenna required for my UHF target
frequency is 5616 / 584 or 9.616 inches. Since measuring tapes have fractions and
not decimals, I rounded to 9 5/8 inches.
The distance separating the wires in a folded dipole design (s), although not
extremely critical, should be small compared to it's length. I decided to wrap the wire
around a screwdriver handle to form the curves, so s is about 3/4 inch.
So now the trick is to take all of the measurements and build an actual antenna. I
start by cutting a 20 1/4 inch (2l plus an extra inch) length of 14 gauge wire and
marking the center of it. The extra inch is so I can make curves on the end and still
end up with the correct width. From the center marking I measure out 5 1/16 inches
in either direction, a quarter of the length of wire, and mark these distances as well.
These last two marks show me roughly where the ends of my dipole will be.
The VHF Antenna
Designing the VHF antenna is the same process as the UHF antenna except that the
center frequency is 195 MHz. This translates to a length (l) of about 24 3/4 inches. I'll
17. be using the same screwdriver handle to form curves on the ends of the dipole so
again I added an extra inch to the length of wire to compensate. That makes the total
length of wire 25 1/4 inches with a center mark at 12 7/8 inches and quarter-length
marks at 6 7/16 inches from the ends.
Putting It All Together
To form the folded dipole elements, I take my straight piece of wire and place one of
the quarter-length marks on top of my screwdriver handle. I then gently bend the wire
around the screwdriver handle, lining up the end of the wire with the center marking. I
repeat the process with the other side making sure the two ends have a gap of about
1/8 inch between them. After a little adjustment, I've got two nice-looking folded
dipoles ready for mounting.
Since I have two antenna elements, I need to combine the signals. I also need to
convert the 300 Ohm antenna elements to the 75 Ohm input of my DTV converter
box. I can accomplish both of these tasks with a relatively inexpensive UHF/VHF 300
Ohm combiner from Radio Shack. I can simply cram the ends of my folded dipoles
under the screw terminals of the combiner and tighten them down so that the UHF
element is stacked on top of the VHF element. If I want to get a little fancier, I could
solder on some fork terminals first.
The only thing left to tackle is hooking it up to the converter. It's not very practical to
attach the 75 Ohm output of the UHF/VHF combiner directly onto the converter box.
That leaves me a couple options. I can get a cable to attach it, but it will need a male
F-connector on one end and a female F connector on the other end. That's not a real
common item as most cables are male on both ends. My other option is to rig
something up with a gender changer. I can plug one end into the UHF/VHF combiner
and attach any standard coax cable to the other end.
Enjoying Over-The-Air Digital
Now that the antenna is done, I simply place it on top of my entertainment center,
cable it to my converter box and point it toward the broadcast towers in my area.
Most of the channels come in very well, but I do live 30 miles from the towers and
occasionally there is some break-up in the picture of weaker stations. Fortunately, I
was able to boost my signal strength with an inexpensive 12dB RF amplifier from a
local home improvement store.
18. All-in-all I am very happy with my antenna design. It has several advantages:
• Good performance
• Fairly inexpensive
• Relatively easy to build
• Much less obtrusive than rabbit ears
Best of all, I learned a lot while building it, plus I get bragging rights for doing it
myself.
3. Bow Tie Antenna
The Bow Tie Antenna is a simple design that can be found in many variations on the
web. It can be made with a 2x4, some coat hangers, aluminum foil and a few other
common parts. While very inexpensive to build, this design is able to pull in stations
from 45 and 50 miles away. (See the broadcast tower information for my area at TV
Fool.)
19.
20. I had originally intended to include some detailed build instructions here. But since
building my Folded Dipole Antenna, I have decided that I would not be
recommending this design. Not that it is a bad design, but I feel that the Folded
Dipole or my Gray-Hoverman are better DIY projects for someone not wanting to
make a hobby of antenna building. Check out the pages for those antennas for the
pros and cons of each design.
If you really want to build a bow tie antenna, a quick web search will find MANY
interesting designs. Here is a diagram and a photo of the Bow Tie that I built. In the
third photo, you can see that I added a reflector to mine. This is just a thin piece of
scrap plywood wrapped in aluminum foil mounted four inches behind the bow tie
elements.
4. Television Frequency Table
This table is the frequency chart for the US designated Television Channels. There
are both VHF and UHF channels listed. This is listed as a matter of information only
and is part of the public domain information of the government.
GENERAL TELEVISION FREQUENCIES
Sub CATV Band - T7 - T13 7 - 48 MHz
VHF Band - Ch. 2 - 13 54 - 216 MHz
Low Band - VHF Ch. 2 - 6 59 - 88 MHz
Mid Band - UHF Ch. 14 – 22 121 - 174 MHz
- UHF Ch. 95 - 99 91 - 120 MHz
High Band - VHF Ch. 7 - 13 175 - 216 MHz
Super Band - CATV Ch. 23 - 36 216 - 300 MHz
Hyper Band - CATV Ch. 37 - 62 300 - 456 MHz
Ultra Band - CATV Ch. 63 - 158 457 - 1002 MHz
UHF Band Ch.14 - 83 - CATV Ch. 63 - 158 70 - 1002 MHz
28. CATV Video Sound
Channel Frequency Frequency
142 901.2500 905.7500
143 907.2500 911.7500
144 913.2500 917.7500
145 919.2500 923.7500
146 925.2500 929.7500
147 931.2500 935.7500
148 937.2500 941.7500
149 943.2500 947.7500
150 949.2500 953.7500
151 955.2500 959.7500
152 961.2500 965.7500
153 967.2500 971.7500
154 973.2500 977.7500
155 979.2500 983.7500
156 985.2500 989.7500
157 991.2500 995.7500
158 997.2500 1001.7500
Frequencies Used by Wireless Cable
Channel
Frequency Number of Type of Channel
Bandwidth
Range Channels Service Groups
(MHz)
2,150 - 2,162 MHz 2 MDS 1,2,2(A) 6
2,305 - 2,320 MHz 2 WCS 5 & 10
2,345 - 2,360 MHz 2 WCS 5 & 10
2,500 - 2,596 MHz 16 ITFS ABC&D 6
2.596 - 2,644 MHz 8 MMDS E&F 6
2,644 - 2,686 MHz 4 ITFS G 6
29. 2,644 - 2,686 MHz 3 MMDS H 6
2,686 - 2,689.875 MHz 31* MMDS Response Channels 0.125
* Each channel's bandwidth is 125 KHz, and does not carry video.
NTSC CONTOURS
Grade B Grade A City Grade
Channels
Service Contour Service Contour Service Contour
Channels 2 through 6 47 dBu 68 dBu 74 dBu
Channels 7 through 13 56 dBu 71 dBu 77 dBu
Channels 14 through 69 64 dBu 74 dBu 80 dBu
DIGITAL TV CONTOURS
Grade B Grade A City Grade
Channels
Service Contour Service Contour Service Contour
Channels 2 through 6 - dBu - dBu 35 dBu
Channels 7 through 13 - dBu - dBu 43 dBu
Channels 14 through 69 - dBu - dBu 48 dBu