Can I use my very old Roof top antenna

[fatray]

The house I moved into is old, built in the 40's. I have a very old and very large rooftop antenna with a box to turn it N, W, S, E. I'm guessing late 60's antenna. Will this work connecting it to my HDTV receiver and allow me to get the digital signal? I get all red, blue and purple signals an am located within 2 miles of a major airport BWI.
I would have tried it already but it will be a PITA to move the antenna cable to my TV room.

[D.Russell]

It's worth a Shot ?

The only way to know is to hook it up and give it a try.

[Ratman]

I would assume that this very old antenna could be VHF only. And, if it does have a UHF portion, it may prove to be inadequate. Especially for red/blue/purple.

And... that airport may be a problem with digital reception (planes cause multipath).

And... Consider that the elements, connectors, etc. may be corroded after all of these years. Is the antenna wire 'twinlead (flat 300 Ohm)' or coax? If twinlead... you should replace with RG6 coax.

It's always worth a try though! Start simple...

[fatray]

Didn't work :sobbing:

It was wired with very thin coax cable with an additional wire attacted for running the antenna rotator. The regular local channels didn't look good either. Lots of ghosting, color seperation and soft pictures.

[mjones73]

You can pick up a UHF only antenna to receive the area's digital broadcasts for $25 at Radio Shack if your mount is in good shape and you just want to swap out antennas and the cabling. Id' at least try new RG6 on the existing antenna and of course aiming it at TV Hill or the DC towers depending on which stations you want. By the way, does the rotator still work?

[tigerbangs]

The rule of thumb about antennas is this: if you aren't getting a good picture in analog from your antenna, then your digital reception won't be so hot, either. poor digital receptions differs from poor analog reception in that analog reception will show snow, ghosting and color mis-registration; poor digital reception will show picture and sound break-up, or no signal at all. If your antenna does not currently get a good picture for you, then it's time to replace it with a new one that will.

The Baltimore-Washington corridor has a walth of DTV stations available to you, and a good antenna will get them all for you.

After 30 years or so, antennas corrode, elements break off, electrical connections become resistive and cable deteriorates to a point where it makes sense to replace the whole system. It is reasonable to expect that you should be able to get Washington and Baltimore stations from your location with a good antenna.

Write back if you want more information about antennas

[Ratman]

... if you aren't getting a good picture in analog from your antenna, then your digital reception won't be so hot, either.

I tend to disagree with this line of thought.

I don't think that this test is a reliable 'barometer'.

In most cases, analog channels can suffer with ghosting and snow. Whereas, that signal may be good enough to lock a digital signal.

Also, testing reception using analog channels that probably reside on VHF (in many cases for the "big" networks) to determine reception with UHF (where the majority of digital channel reside) can produce misleading results.

Just my $.02

[tigerbangs]

Ratman, in all of my years of installing antennas, I can tell you that a lousy analog signal means trouble on digital! If you are seeing ghosting on a large scale in analog, it almost always means trouble in digital: most digital channels originate from the same transmitting locations as their analog counterparts, and while UHF stations have reduced range as compared to analog, many of the same issues still apply. The upshot of all of this is that an old and corroded antenna without a functioning rotator is unlikely to provide much satisfaction. It's worth a try, but I wouldn't get my hopes up about it's performance, and don't be discouraged if it's performance is substandard: an new antenna that is properly aimed and installed will usually fix the problem.

[Ratman]

Well, we will have to agree to disagree.

I'm not slamming your experience, but if I get ghosting on Channel 6 (WPVI), it doesn't necessarily mean that Channel 64 (WPVI-DT) will be poor.

[tigerbangs]

In many cases, Ratman, that may be true: the wavelength of channel 64 is 10 times smaller than the one on channel 6, and multipath problems become less as stations go highter in frequency, but an old, corroded antenna is just plain NASTY! Would you eat off one? I know I wouldn't!

[Ratman]

I agree 100%. A 30-40 year old antenna, connectors and cabling is ready for an upgrade.

[ToXicChiLL]

I agree for Ratman on this one. After installing an antenna on my roof, I did a scan on my TV (Build in ATSC and NTSC receiver) and on my analog channel, they came up with a lot of ghosting and snow. But all my digital channel comes out looking like a pot of gold.