{"id":213,"date":"2009-09-19T14:45:18","date_gmt":"2009-09-19T21:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cchsu.com\/art-en\/?p=213"},"modified":"2009-09-19T14:45:18","modified_gmt":"2009-09-19T21:45:18","slug":"free-digital-hdtv-for-dummies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.cchsu.com\/art-en\/2009\/09\/19\/213\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Digital HDTV for Dummies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve posted <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cchsu.com\/art-en\/2009\/06\/27\/114\/\" target=\"_blank\">DIY UHF Antenna<\/a> a while ago, and it seems that the name of the article is way too technical.  Most people simply don&#8217;t know this antenna can be used to receive digital HDTV signal as well.  Some even laugh at me saying I&#8217;m an idiot attach such antenna to my shiny new LCD TV.  I pity the fool.  UHF is a spectrum, HD is the content, and digital TV is the standard of signal carried over UHF spectrum.<\/p>\n<p>So, wanna watch free HD channels over the air?  Here&#8217;s the simplest DIY antenna, the Doppler Rectangular Ring Antenna.  The end-result can be prettier than this one:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/24238190@N00\/3665748137\/\" class=\"tt-flickr tt-flickr-Medium\" title=\"IMG_1343\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3586\/3665748137_63370154a1.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_1343\" width=\"375\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a> <\/p>\n<p>Materials Needed<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>12 gauge copper wire 7 ft. (The wire must be insulated, no naked wire please.)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/RCA-Matching-Transformer-VH54\/dp\/B00005T3EY\" target=\"_blank\">RCA Matching Transformer<\/a> (a.k.a. BALUN)<\/li>\n<li>Card board 12&#8243;x40&#8243;<\/li>\n<li>Naked thin copper wire for BALUN fixing.  You can strip the wire from unwanted phone line or network cable.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Tools Needed<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Pencil<\/li>\n<li>Ruler (with scale in centimeters, most rulers in Staples do)<\/li>\n<li>Wire pliers (bending gauge #12 wire using fingers may work, but not my fingers)<\/li>\n<li>Electrician&#8217;s tape<\/li>\n<li>3M magic tape<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Steps (Shown as animated GIF)<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cchsu.com\/art-en\/wp-content\/uploads\/DIY-UHF-antenna-en.gif\" alt=\"Illustration of steps\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Notes<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You can buy\/get all materials in stores like Home Depot or Lowes.<\/li>\n<li>Please wear protective gloves and glasses, especially for those never worked with wires before.  It will be tougher than expected.  If you don&#8217;t know how to remove the plastic wrapping, use a small knife to peel it nicely.<\/li>\n<li>Make best effort to bend perfect right angles.  I personally used two pliers to do that trick.  You can also use wire bending clamps, if you have it.<\/li>\n<li>We need to keep the antenna as flat as possible, and that&#8217;s why I use 3M magic tape to tape the wires on the cardboard.<\/li>\n<li>Polarity of BALUN is not an issue, so feel free to pick one and connect.  It&#8217;s suggested to tie the poles of BALUN onto antenna via naked thin copper wires.  A firm contact is required.<\/li>\n<li>The cable connecting antenna to the TV shall not be longer than 6 ft, otherwise, a pre-amp is suggested.<\/li>\n<li>The antenna is directional.  You&#8217;ll need to pose it vertically as shown in the first picture of this article.  You&#8217;ll also need to try several different orientations and locations to get the best signal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cchsu.com\/art-en\/2009\/07\/29\/133\/\">You can find the answers to frequently asked questions here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Illustrated instructions of DIY Doppler Rectangular Ring antenna.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cchsu.com\/art-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cchsu.com\/art-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cchsu.com\/art-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cchsu.com\/art-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cchsu.com\/art-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.cchsu.com\/art-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216,"href":"http:\/\/www.cchsu.com\/art-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions\/216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cchsu.com\/art-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cchsu.com\/art-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cchsu.com\/art-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}