The choice of a television antenna is not such a simple matter as it might seem at first glance. The type of antenna that you need depends on many factors. This is the area of residence, and remoteness from the television tower, and the presence of interference, and the number of desired channels.
To date, there are three main types of antennas: satellite, outdoor and indoor antennas for TV. Our today's article will tell you about how to choose a room TV antenna. Let's find out what this device is, and what nuances should be considered when buying it.
Television Room Antenna
This type of antenna is suitable only for those users who live in the zone of a moderate signal. In other words, the inhabitants of the remote area with poor reception of the signal of a simple indoor antenna (even with an amplifier) will not be enough.
Among the advantages of indoor antennas are:
- compactness - such an antenna does not take a lot of space in your apartment;
- mobility - it can easily be moved from room to room, connected to another television set, transported to another apartment or to a dacha;
- low cost - in comparison with the satellite and outdoor antenna, this unit you can buy at a relatively low price.
The main drawbacks of active indoor TV antennas are, firstly, their low performance, and secondly, the need for location in 20-30 km from the nearest telecentre, and thirdly, an obligatory fine tuning. Keep in mind that finding near the tower is also not an ideal option: in this case, there will be other kinds of noise, for example, signal reflection. To get rid of them, you need a device, the reverse of the amplifier (it's called an attenuator).
Types of indoor antennas
There are two main types of indoor antennas - the pivot and frame ones.
- The first are two metal "antennae" of a total length of up to one meter. "Antenna" antennae bend in several places - this is necessary for tuning the antenna. In order to get a good "picture" of one channel, you need to try hard to adjust it. But sometimes it happens that the perfect setting of one TV channel gives a failure in the configuration of others. Therefore, before using the indoor antenna, the master is most likely to call, which adjusts it in some averaged mode.
- The difference between frame and rod indoor antennas is that they operate in decimeter (dmv) mode. The loop antenna is a metal frame in the form of an open ring. This simple design has the same characteristics as the core, so there is no particular difference in the choice of the type of indoor antenna. Here you should focus on the optimal for you range of signal reception - meter or decimetre, and this, in turn, depends on the number of TV channels that you prefer to watch.
Recently, a new type of indoor antenna has become more popular: all-wave log-periodic antennas designed for the decimeter range. They are also called broadband, because they can "catch" a large number of frequency channels, giving a qualitative picture.
So, let's draw conclusions. The indoor antenna makes sense to buy, if you live in a city (not in the outback) with a normal signal reception, the nearest TV tower is located within 30 km of your home, and you want to adjust the signal quality a little, without spending too much money on it.
Also you can make an antenna with your own hands from improvised materials and even from beer cans .