Slashdot Mirror
Hobbyists Create GPLed DIY Super TV Antenna
Freshly Exhumed writes "Retired and hobbyist antenna engineers working together in the Digital Home forums have taken an obscure 1950s UHF TV antenna called the Hoverman [PDF] and subjected the design to modern software-based computer modeling in hopes of optimizing its middling performance. The result: the new Gray-Hoverman antenna is more powerful than similar commercially manufactured consumer antennas in every category, sometimes by whopping amounts. Best thing yet: they've released the design, diagrams, and schematics under the GPLv3 so that we can roll our own! Quoth one of the testers, a former U.S. Government antenna engineer: 'Boy, this antenna is hot... This antenna is a vast, and I mean REALLY VAST improvement over anything I have used.' The home thread of the Gray-Hoverman development gives the background of their great work."
This is a specific variation of the Hoverman antenna. The first original achievement is the specific design, which would be enough justification for an article on its own. I'm not an expert on the history of antenna design so I can't vouch for that.
The second and more important achievement is that the designers tried to verify the design of this antenna analytically using relatively new methods. The computational power needed to do this didn't emerge until after this kind of small antenna was no longer in vogue. As you probably know, about half of what hams say about antennas and interference is "black magic." The kind of hands-on techie who turns into a ham tends to be more like MacGuyver and less like Bertrand Russell.
Why would the existence of antenna design as a discipline imply that no new designs are possible?
What's amusing, (and not in a funny-haha sense, but more in a funny-smell sense), is all the new antennas out there advertising that they're somehow "digital" antennas as if the mode affects antenna performance. I suppose they *could* be optimized for the smaller bandwidth somehow, but that's not how they're being advertised. It's not as if your 17 element beam on the roof is going to suddenly start working worse than an indoor loop-antenna.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Yep. I was going to build to TONIGHT. I have to the tools, and I'm good with DIY projects and tinkering, but I don't know much about antennas. I don't know what metal to use for this, or how this connects to a piece of coax to plug into a tuner. It looks extremely simple, but some critical pieces are missing.
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
Having been in the ISP field I have seen too many DMCA notices to not say - watch out for torrents. You can still get served simply because your IP is of the torrents in use.
/., so you should already know about the wonders of usenet...
With that said, I'd suggest a good usenet service - avoid giganews - and a usenet tracker like newzbin.com. You can even SSL usenet nowadays. Safer, easier, and pretty darn easy. Of course, this is
Actually, I've noticed exactly the opposite.
* Many more homes will be able to receive an OTA signal, that previously could not.
* Digital broadcasts will offer perfect reception, eliminating much of the need for cable/sat.
* OTA HDTV will offer the highest quality picture anyone can get.
* OTA ATSC offers the potential for more TV channels than an expensive subscription service (50*6 = 300), in addition to other informational services.
* Rising prices and horrendous support will push people away from cable/satellite.
* Proprietary STBs and feet-dragging on CableCard will push even more people away from cable/sat.
* DVR technology will eliminate the need for syndication, and there the business model for 90% of cable/satellite networks will fail.
* The quality of original programming on cable/satellite networks has dropped SEVERELY, anyhow.
* Pop-up ads on cable/sat networks (largely not found on broadcast) will push even more people away.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant