Here are the results I achieved after switching from a normal set of rabbit ears to the bowtie antenna. I will eventually mount it permanently in the attic for better reception. I just wanted to set it on a shelf for testing, so a simple base worked for me. What you do here would depend on where you plan on mounting it. I used some scrap wood to build a base for it. Here I screwed the cover for the balun to the back of the antenna to hold it in place, then attached it and secured the wires with the pigtail hanging down.Īnd here’s the end product. I screwed the connections for the balun to the front and wrapped the wires around to the back so I could attach it to the back. I cut, stripped, and bent two short pieces of wire to attach the balun to the back of the antenna. I cut a hole in the side of the balun then cut the end off a piece of coax cable I had and soldered it to the contacts of the coax connection. This is what it looks like on the inside. This matches the high impedance of the antenna to the lower impedance of the receiver. It isn’t exactly what I was looking for, but it will work with a little modification. This is the only kind of balun (matching transformer) I could find at the hardware store when I was getting the other supplies. Measure from the screw to the tips of each “V” and cut them off at 7 inches. Make sure everything is snug and all the bare areas of wire are touching. Next put everything together with the screws and washers. (only the two nodes are shown stripped in the picture below) Strip the ends and three spots on those wires to make contact with the center nodes and the center tap. I used a wire stripper to score both ends of the area to be stripped then used a utility knife to split the insulation and peel it off.īend the wires into “V” shapes then cut two more pieces of wire about 17 inches long to connect the bowties. I couldn’t find any bare wire, so I needed to strip the insulation off the areas where the connections needed to be made. Romex is a couple cents cheaper per foot, but requires more work to split the sheath and separate the wires. You can also get romex type 12-2 or 12-3 house wire with three or four wires in a sheath (hot, neutral, ground). I bought electrical wire off the spool by the foot. They only need to be 7 inches after folding in half, but I like to add a little extra and cut them to length later. This may be unnecessary, but I like to do it to keep the wood from splitting.Ĭut 8 pieces of wire about 15 inches long. The holes for each set will be centered on the board and 1 inch apart.ĭrill out the spots you marked for the screws with a 1/16 drill bit. Make the first set about 2 inches from the top and then measure 5 1/4 inches to the next set and and continue down making each set of holes 5 1/4 inches apart. Start by cutting the 1×3 to length and marking the spots for the holes. Subscribe or come back soon to see the second version of the DIY HDTV TV antenna.ġ0x Wood Screws (I actually used 6 x 1/2” metal screws)ġ×3 or similar size board around 22 inches long This is the first of two antenna designs I’ve built. I built this DB4 antenna, also called a bowtie antenna, to increase the rang of signals I could pick up over the basic rabbit ears antenna. This DIY antenna is very easy to build with just a few basic tools and a few supplies available from the hardware store.Īfter being disappointed with the current channel offerings and ever increasing price of our local cable provider, we recently decided to disconnect our cable TV service and go for over the air broadcasts as well as the many online services available now. Build your own HDTV TV Antenna to cut the cord from your cable provider and save $1000 a year.
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